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Cruel Serenade Discussion (The first game) Sticky

A topic by bitshiftgames created 26 days ago Views: 888 Replies: 35
Viewing posts 1 to 10
Developer(+2)

I'm putting a designated thread here, since CS doesn't have a forum-style comment section, and it's easier to to discuss things in-depth with this formatting. Basic comments can of course still go on the comment section there as well, just putting this here so people know discussing the first game can happen here as well. If you just want to leave a simple comment, do so in this thread. If you want to go more in-depth, back and forth etc, start a new thread, but put (Cruel Serenade) in the title so people know context.

(+1)

I found a bug with a repeating word, I do not know if it is a mistake or not, just because I am not a native English speaker, but it seems strange to me.

Developer(+1)

Wow, good catch! I can't believe no one (including myself) has noticed that until now. And on both the original intro and the loop! I've fixed it now: between this and the recent gallery fix, I may as well push an official new version number, so I'll try to get that up soon.

(+1)

If I were you, I would check the entire text in the game for grammatical errors, you never know what to find there. XD

Developer

If only I had the time. I do my best when initially writing the games to try to check for typos and other mistakes, but part of the problem is that RPGMaker's dialog text input doesn't let you see the whole chunk of text at a glance, you have to scroll (sometimes quite a bit), so it's easy for things like this to slip in. Normally players find the small things I miss pretty quickly on release though: that's why I was surprised this one had survived for so long.

(1 edit) (+1)

I had my doubts about this, but I'm going to ask anyway, "justice is DIY (Do It Yourself)"? Maybe it should say "justice is DIE/DYING" here? I just thought for the first time that it was written correctly here and that most likely these are features of the English language, but I'm more than sure that this is not the case.

Developer

No, that's intentional. Do It Yourself. Mezz is a vigilante hero, he literally (well...metaphorically literally) takes justice into his own hands/paws. More broadly, it's saying that in the futuristic dystopia the games take place in, you are on your own. Everyone has to fight for themselves.

(+1)

I can't regard this as a bug, but sometimes his name appears above the Mezza icon, for example, at the moment when he picked up Skull Crush, but most of the time his name is not displayed during dialogues. So the question is, should Mezza's name always appear in dialogues, or was it intentional?

By the way, while I was playing the new version, 1.0.5, I got my first sex scene after being defeated by stronger boars (as I realized, not only are they stronger than normal, but they call for help from the same boars as them), and I know that for the final game over you need to lose three in battle three times and you can also get three variations of the first sex scene. But when I just opened the first variation, all three variations opened in my gallery menu, that is, I opened all the variations at once when I got only the first variation in the game. I do not know if this should be the case or not, but it seems to me that in order to get all the variations of the first sex scene, you need to open all the variations in the game itself.

Developer (1 edit)

This was the first game I made, so there are some stylistic inconsistencies here and there as I hadn't fully settled on how I was going to format certain things. I am aware of this though, and am fine leaving it as-is for now. For the most part, in contrast, GT should be much more consistent with things like name boxes (though I DO intentionally avoid dialog portraits during cutscenes sometimes, since the character is already on screen. No pressure, but if you do decide to try translation stuff, this kind of obsession with detail is exactly what I hope for for translators.
As far as the boar scene unlock, yes, that's intentional. It depends on personal judgement, but usually when designing the unlocks for the galleries I try to be a little "merciful." So yes, one boar defeat will unlock all of them in the gallery, but it won't unlock Diezel, or the other Diezel scene, etc.

"what I hope for for translators.". Since you mentioned the translation and the window with the name in the same sentence, does this have any connection? Does this mean that through the ++ program it is possible to make the window with the name always appear in the game itself?

(+1)

Uhhhh... Well... Bunny on the table... What else can I say? Another bug. I was able to climb onto the table by going to the top, that is, in order to climb these three squares of the field, I have to go in the upward direction.

Developer

Yeah, the way RPGMaker MV handles collisions with tile definitions is...arcane to say the least. I've become better at anticipating it over time, but a few do still get through, and again, this is the first game, so it makes more sense that it would be here. Congrads though, this probably means you're the first of any player to try walking into that particular piece of counter! Or at least the first that did and then bothered to report it. I don't want to bother people with another update so soon, but this is fixed on my local copy, so if/when another general update gets pushed, it'll be included.

(+1)

Collisions with tile? Is this some kind of term from RPGMaker? I don't know much about game programming, especially on RPGMaker, I only ever worked with Clickteam Fusion 2.5 when I wanted to make my own parody of FNaF, but then I gave up on it.

Developer

RPG engines typically build maps out of "tiles", individual squares that can be terrain, floors, walls, clutter etc. These tiles are pulled from "tile sheets", large image files with a bunch of tiles laid out in a grid. In RPGMaker MV, you also define a number of properties for each tile in programming: how "high" the tile is (below player, same as, above). If the tile is set to "same as", you get a "collision" when attempting to walk through it: the engine won't let you. Thus, things like floors are usually set to "below", and things like walls and tables to "same as". This becomes complicated in MV however, because you can layer several tiles on top of each other, and the last to be laid down dictates the "height". This can break things:

1. You define a wall tile, and set it to "same as"

2. You define a semi-transparent crack tile, and set it to "beneath", because you want to use it on the floor and have the player walk over it.

3. Later, you forget about this and put the crack on a wall. Now, the player can walk over/through the wall, because the crack's height properties override the wall's. 

This is just one example. The point is there are a lot of sneaky edge cases in MV where something like this can happen. I've become much better at anticipating and correcting them, but like I said, this was my first attempt at an MV game.

(+1)

But how did it happen that one part of it allows me to follow it, and the rest, on the contrary, works as it should? Judging by how you described it, the texture of the crack in the program remembered that it should be "beneath", which allowed the player to walk on the wall, but what about the table?

Developer (1 edit)

Like I said, that's just one example of what can go wrong. Another: tiles can also have directional collision. Say you have a tile with a fence on the far right side. You still want to be able to exit and enter it from the top, bottom and left, just not the right. So you can set that. This can cause problems if you set this up custom for a tile and then forget about it. You can also set certain tiles to programmed "regions" and, with a plugin, tie specific lighting effects to those regions. If you want to just apply the lighting effect without a new tile being visible, you can use a fully transparent tile...but then it's easy to forget you've placed that tile, and you can have the crack situation all over again. The tiles for the tops of walls are tricky, because they're usually impassible/"same as character", but what if you want to be able to climb a ladder and then walk around on those tiles, but still collide with them when you're on the ground? And on and on.

I actually have no idea what caused this particular collision issue, and it's not worth the time to fully figure out. Luckily I don't have to: RPGMaker MV has a brute-force "fix it" solution for this that works every time: you just put down an empty "event" on the tile. Events are programmable containers that are used for npcs, buttons, anything that changes throughout the game basically. And they ALSO have a "layer height". But THEIR layer height always overrides anything else on the tile space. So I just put down an invisible (to the player) event, set height to "same as character", and no more walking on the table. Ideally of course I WOULD figure out the actual problem and fix it, because slapping these down everywhere introduces clutter. But sometimes it's difficult or impossible to say why the issue is happening, and sometimes it's obvious WHY, but there's no easy solution, so I have to resort to this.
To answer your question directly: Something is different on those counter tiles at the bottom that's causing this. What is it? No idea. But I can still fix it, so I have. 

(1 edit) (+1)

I have a small complaint about the lack of warnings about bright flashes and harsh lighting effects. The thing is that during battles there are various bright effects that flash for a moment and they often appear. Thank God I don't have epilepsy or other serious vision problems, but still I have poor eyesight, or rather short-sightedness, and I wear glasses on a regular basis. The only warning about this was in one of the FA posts (https://www.furaffinity.net/view/46280020), but it's not on the game's page itself, since not all people will search for this post or even look for the developer's FA, and I didn't even know that the author had his own page in FA and that all the roots of this game went It's from there. I just want to politely ask you to write a warning for epileptics and people with photosensitivity on the pages of the CS and GT games, because if someone else really has epilepsy, then this game may be the last for him in his life.

Developer

I will add a brief warning to the itch pages, as it's now been formally requested. That said, I think the danger in such cases, while real, has been somewhat misunderstood and exaggerated over time. The Pokemon episode that put the issue on most people's radar,  "Dennō Senshi Porygon", for example, resulted in the hospitalization of some 600 people (a real issue), but no deaths, and that episode is the WORST POSSIBLE scenario. To the best of my knowledge, there has NEVER been a death tied to a seizure caused by photosensitive epilepsy. Seizures are still bad enough on their own of course, and CAN be fatal, so sure, I'll put a notice. But I geniunely don't believe the mild flash effects in the games pose any risk to anyone, sensitive or otherwise. If I did, I wouldn't post a warning, I'd just leave them out. 

For clarity however: CS and GT hypno effects sometimes include a MILD, SINGLE flash effect in ONE color. Occasionally, this may be strung together into as many as three or four, but somewhat spaced out in time. In contrast, the pokemon episode had a rapid STROBE effect of two colors that went on for several seconds. I'm NOT photosensitive, and even I find it kind of sickening to watch. 

(+1)

I'm not aware of such an episode, and I'm not a fan of Pokemon to watch their animated series, although I've heard something about this episode. However, as for CS, I've just been sitting at the computer for a very long time lately, summer holidays after all, and one day I was tired and my eyes were tired too, and when I looked at the effects of the fights, my eyes felt unpleasant, they hurt a little. I understand that this is essentially my fault since I don't feel sorry for myself, but what about other people who have more serious vision problems? I know that hospitalization is not a fatal outcome, but it's still not good.

Developer

No, I agree, it's entirely possible the effect could be mildly unpleasant for some people, so from that, an ABUNDANCE of caution, and the fact you requested it, I've added the notices you requested. But there's a big difference between that and SEVERE health effects, which I think are simply not going to be triggered by any of the effects in the game. That was all I was pointing out. But regardless, the warning is up now, so people can judge for themselves.

(+1)

Is there a guide to unluck the whole gallery of CS?

Developer(+1)

Yes, here: https://bitshiftgames.itch.io/cruelserenade/devlog/382973/scene-guide

(+1)

Hi! How are you? Did you miss me? No? Yes? It doesn't matter! It's me again! I'm here again so that I can annoy you once again! And why? Because I'm bored lol! /j

I found another line of dialogue in which there is a repeating word again. I also have a few questions about some points in the game. I noticed that the sprites where Mez gets anal sex during the battle are too close to the right side, so when the sprite moves to the right, it goes off the screen. Is this how it's meant to be or shouldn't it be? During the passage, I made a discovery for myself, when using the mouse cursor, you can find out the statistics of effects that are available, for example, on Meze, I know that games created on RPG Maker can be played both with the keyboard (Arrows, Z and X) and with a computer mouse, but I don't think most people will Play using only one mouse.

Developer

Ha! Hey, glad you're passionate about the game (almost as passionate as Mezz is about Boars). Let's work our way through these:

1. Not a (mistaken) repeated word. While it's arguably stylistically less than ideal, that sentence is intentional and entirely grammatical. In casual english, a slur/insult can be on its own: "Come over here slut" or it can be prefaced with "you" for emphasis: "Come over here you little slut." This is casual language that implies a rougher, cruder speaker, which makes it a good fit for the boars. So in the sentence "We're going to ruin you you smug shit, the first "you" is the object, and the second is an intensifier that adds information. What kind of smug shit? Who is the smug shit? "you". Arguably a comma after the first "you" might help for visual clarity, but the sentence is fine as-is.

2.Off-screen stuff: this gets into RPGMaker and sprite movement.

By default when RPGMaker MV runs a battle, it pulls representations of the enemies and player characters from images in sv_enemies and sv_characters respectively. sv_enemy images are simple one-image representations of the enemies, sv_characters are "sprite sheets", images that contain a grid of images of the character in a variety of poses, and with 3 frames of animations for each. During the course of a battle, the engine pulls from a given part of the sprite sheet as needed (an attack, taking a hit, using an item etc). It also slides the player image around at certain times in the battle.

This was my first game, so while I was able to edit the sprite sheets and swap them out at various points, I had limited understanding and control over fine details like the sliding. I ended up with much more precise control in in GT, and MUCH more in chapter 3 via some plugins. But I'm fine with the slightly off-screen movement in this case. It's only when certain actions happen in the battle, and it gives a kind of dynamism or "bounce" to things, so they're not just sitting in the same place all the time. This isn't the only time you'll see this kind of thing though: if you really pay attention to the battles, there are a lot of little movements that aren't the most perfectly choreographed. Just the reality of it being my first attempt at these things, but it's an acceptable flaw.

3. And yes, the details on the status effects obviously isn't a bug. It wasn't in the game at all originally, RPGMaker MV doesn't support it out of the box, but someone requested better clarity on what the effects were doing, so I added it via plugin, and it ends up being more important/useful in GT for certain battles. If people never discover it though, that's fine: It's possible to figure out most of the status effects simply by context. But if people are curious, it's a nice additional thing to have. 

(1 edit) (+1)

1) A comma would really make the sentence clearer, we didn't teach this in English lessons (or we did, but it passed me by). The comma is literally a universal punctuation mark, without it there is absolutely nowhere. Try to write some text yourself, and then remove all the commas from it and leave only other punctuation marks such as dots, question marks, exclamation marks, and so on, the text will simply become an incomprehensible mess. Even if it's formulated correctly, some people like me may have questions about it, and don't forget that they're trying to translate your game into different languages.

2) Is it possible to make the sprite slightly to the left so that when moving to the right it does not go off the screen? And one more question, I know that in some locations there are walls and boxes that Mez supposedly leans against while being fucked, as in my screenshots, it just seems to me that he seems to be "leaning" on the air, I just have the same impression during fights.

3) If it is really important and / or necessary to know what statistics give different effects, then you need to make sure that the player finds out about it, add tutorials for decency, which talked about the control in the game, equipment, and so on, as it was in the game "Changed" where there was a note about the control in the game itself and even how to make a full-screen game. (Examples on the screenshots) [This game was also made on RPG Maker, by the way, I'm just saying]

However, I have more questions. Why is it that enemies can only have a sprite in one image, while characters SHOULD have an animation in three frames? Isn't it possible to do the same as with enemies? And after digging through the game files, I found sprites that are not in the game, or at least I did not see them during my walkthroughs, I definitely did not see a boss sprite that differs from that sprite during the fight with him. However, I found that there are sprites of Meez where he looks back and looks worried, I do not know if they are used at all, but I wonder what they are for and if they can be seen in the actions of the game.

Diezel in battle/boss fight:

Unused sprite in the game files:

There is also a question about the tail of the Mezz, it seems to me that it is somehow high (Not on all sprites, but on some of them, for example, AgainstWall). At first I thought that Mezz's butt was just bigger than average, but in fact it wasn't, because in one of the sex scenes we can clearly see the real size of his buttocks ( which is a pity, I really like big cakes ;( ). Was it just an error in anatomy when drawing Mezz in different and complex poses, and it was fixed in the next future chapters, or is it not a mistake and everything is so planned? Or is there another explanation for all this?

Developer

1. Again, grammatically, it's a valid English sentence. The comma in this case is a judgement call/down to taste, and in this case I'm fine with things as they are.

2. Again, while the presentation of the sprites during battles may be a little rough in some ways in CS, a. I'm fine with that to a degree b. I don't see this particular positioning as an issue. It doesn't go fully off-screen, and it doesn't stay in its displaced position permanently. The movement helps convey that something is happening and gives it impact in the absence of actual animation frames.

In general, while I do still welcome feedback on CS and all my games, keep in mind that there is such a thing as "good enough" when it comes to creative and commercial works. Game-breaking bugs I will obviously fix (though there shouldn't be much of that left in CS at this point). Minor, obvious mistakes or oversights that are trivial to fix (like collision errors), I'm also happy to fix. But given the age of the game, I'm less likely to go into the weeds on details like the specifics of combat mechanics. Discussions can still happen, but they're going to be used more for consideration of what to do or not do going forward. Every bit of energy and time I put into revising old games is time I can't put into building new ones: this isn't to say I won't revise the old ones at ALL, but the fixes in question have to be low effort and at least reasonable reward (as fixing typos and small collisions are). 

3.  "If it is really important and / or necessary to know what statistics give different effects, then you need to make sure that the player finds out about it, add tutorials for decency, which talked about the control in the game, equipment, and so on-"

This has been discussed at length by me and other players since the game came out. Tutorialization and teaching the player are not simple things with one standard solution when it comes to games. The correct implementation depends on the nature and personality of the game, the audience it's made for, and so on. These games are largely inspired by a crop of Japanese adult RPG titles from the mid to late 2010s. A large part of the experience of playing those, as someone with only limited Japanese knowledge, was having to figure out items and mechanics by experience rather than explicit description. On the one hand, this has guided my design philosophy for the games towards trying to make them as self-evident for BASIC gameplay as possible: the games I enjoyed usually didn't need any translation to figure out what was going on or how to do what was needed, just for the story. In general, I think a well-designed game mechanic, at least a simple one, doesn't need explanation: it explains itself through basic experimentation by the player. The only "tutorial" needed is giving correct space and circumstances for this experimentation to happen.

On the other hand, I actually enjoy the mystery of having mechanics or items that do not immediately announce how they work. Subtle mechanics are better mechanics, because they allow a player space to figure things out on their own, and when they DO, it's more satisfying and enjoyable. Constantly explaining everything is like being a hovering parent that never leaves your child alone for more that five minutes. Children, and players, need space to explore on their own.

Of course the caveat to this is that I, as the game designer, have to actually make the mechanics discoverable. Being GIVEN the answer to a problem is no fun. Being given a problem that's too hard is ALSO no fun, and obviously this balance can be tricky, and is inherently somewhat subjective and varies by person. But I do my best to guess, and once each game is out, I gauge the quality of the balance from how many people complain about a given thing, or struggle with it. If a lot, I fucked up. If a few, and and they're able to get it with a small hint, it's fine. If zero, perfect. 

All of this to say, tutorialization is part of game balance, and game balance is a complicated thing, and one I DO put some effort and consideration into. The skill descriptions are an example of a compromise: they don't hit you over the head with how something works, but they're there if you REALLY want to know and dig a little. I should also say: Another reason I avoid overly explaining things, aside from the fun of mystery and the satisfaction of working it out yourself, is that explicit explanations tend to be immersion-breaking: they remind you that you're playing a game, and spoil the fun. They do appear OCCASIONALLY in GT, and will in 3, but I do everything I can to avoid them, and when I can't, to make them as unobtrusive as possible. I would NEVER put something like your screenshots in the game. Certain people in the modern day suffer from a disease of being not just kind, but overly nice, and this manifests in game design as this pathology of having to over-explain everything out of TERROR that a player might be confused for even a moment. Again, it's the smothering parent thing. Players NEED to be allowed to be a little confused. Players need to be given space to work things out on their own. Players need game designers to have SOME faith in them, some faith that they have a functional pre-frontal cortex and basic problem solving skills. Because that's what a game IS: a challenge. A set of problems that you have to figure out solutions to. If the game just gives you the answers, it's no fun, AND it's patronizing and insulting to your intelligence. 

So for this reason, I'm not going to tell my players how controls in an RPG work, for example. RPGMaker MV controls are standard across all the games made with it, and they're fairly intuitive. There are even TWO SETS of keyboard controls that are active at the same time, one for western audiences and one (which I prefer) for the Japanese crowd. I explain things when a. They're not standard or immediately obvious and/or b. When they might be overly time-consuming or frustrating to figure out, rather than a fun challenge. Again, this obviously varies based on intended audience. But the audience *I* am targeting knows how basic video game controls work.  

Again though, this is balanced by the reality check of overall feedback. If I put out a new game and get flooded by people saying they're one-shotted by a particular mechanic or have no idea what to do here or there, obviously something needs to be tweaked. But EVEN THEN, my first instinct is "oh, the mechanic is too hard to figure out, it must be badly designed. Let's make it more intuitive, lets drop a few more hints etc." It's NOT to simply explain things point-blank. That's always the last option, because it's the least fun one.

4. "Why is it that enemies can only have a sprite in one image, while characters SHOULD have an animation in three frames? Isn't it possible to do the same as with enemies?"

Nope, in the default engine, enemies are not animated, they get one picture. Just the way it was designed. Games like mine do all kinds of things to add more dynamic stuff back into the battles, but that's the default design. I can't recall the details on that Diezel sprite: I know one eye direction was needed for some reason, but I don't know if I just tweaked it to be looking a different way and left the old one, or if I use both in different versions of the battle. Regardless, it's not for an animation, and can't be swapped mid-battle like the player: all you can do with enemies is hide them, which is what happens in some of the games for some of the battle sex graphics.

And finally, as for Mezz's tail: hey, my art skills are what they are. That's what it comes down to. They have gradually improved as the games have gone on, but I am not the world's greatest artist. It's good enough to get the idea across.

(3 edits) (+1)

As for Diezel's sprite, most likely it should have been in order to show how he looks before the fight, as with Sleazy Hyena/Mahir in GT, it also hints at his direct gaze, unlike the look during the fight where he looks at Mezz. I didn't get my answer about Mezz's sprites, where he's completely naked, covered in semen, looking back and looking worried. (The path to such sprites is: www -> img -> sv_actors -> Mezzsluttyclothed.png; Mezzsluttynude.png; Mezzsluttynudeunaware.png)

I do not know if they are used or not, but at least I have not seen them in my walkthroughs of the game. Sometimes there were moments when the sprites changed very quickly, literally for an instant, maybe in those moments you can notice them.

And by the way, why doesn't the Sleazy Hyena/Mahir icon have a transparent background like other characters like Mezz and boars? Instead, it has a monochrome background.

Developer

1. I'm not sure which image your referring to for Mezz. Terminology: "sprites" are the ones with transparency, and more precisely, mostly the ones in "sv_actors" (pardon, I was calling it "sv_characters" before) and "characters". If you mean the one with him bent over in the cage, that's simply a scene you may not have gotten yet. If you mean any of the images with his head back in the actual sprite sheets, those are the reaction image to him being hit during battle. 

2. As for Mahir: the image you're pulling for Diezel is being taken from the game itself. The image you're referring to for Mahir was posted HERE, to Itch, during initial discussion and production of the game. I added the background to make the outline clearer, as it wouldn't look as good with transparency against the solid black of the game page. The screenshot is of course in-game, so it uses the actual transparency image. 

 

(+1)

I ask you to take a closer look at these sprites. It's not about a sex scene, it's about fighting sprites. Mez is completely naked, covered in cam, and looks back during the fight, looking worried. I even pointed out the path to these sprites in a previous post.

Mezzsluttyclothed.png:

Mezzsluttynude.png:

Mezzsluttynudeunaware.png:

I apologize, I haven't figured out how to send this in another way, except to cut out certain poses from the battle sprite sheets. Judging by the name of these sprites, they appear only after we unlock the slut mode, but in my walkthroughs, I haven't seen them during combat, and I repeat again that I don't know if they are used in the game or not, at least I haven't seen them. Maybe I need to do something so that I can see them.

Unfortunately, I didn't quite understand your explanation about Mahir, but it's not that important. As for the unused Diezel image, that's what I meant:

This is an edith that I made in the Easy Paint Tool SAI, and it seems to me that it turned out pretty well. This image was clearly created for this, as it was with Mahir, where Mezz (perhaps) first encounters Mahir.

However, I have a couple more questions. I found that wild boars can sometimes notice the Mez through fences and walls, it makes sense through the fence since they do not completely block the view and through them one could see the Mez, but how could they see it through thick walls? I just think it's a bug.

By the way, this happened after I tried to escape from the wild boars when they noticed me. They also started walking unpredictably fast in different directions after they stopped chasing, apparently due to the fact that they are far from the places where they originally were.

And I have a question at this point, I just can't understand what this censorship means, what exactly is censored here? I know it was done on purpose, I'm just curious. 

Developer

Oooh, the nervous look ones. You have to understand, there are a lot of experiments I do during production to try to get the "feel" right on things. Most of the unused stuff gets cleaned up, some is just left there. These were made for a very specific set of circumstances, and I THINK at least some of them are used in game, but I can't remember specifics at this point. I will say that once you hit slut mode, actually fighting becomes basically impossible, and you "win" by fucking all the boars to satisfaction in a fight. The one set you've circled in the first one is for that: it's a "victory" sprite, but you won by slutting it up, so it's a different sprite. I'd have to dig through the code to figure out if the others ended up being used or not though, and it's not worth the time/energy at the moment. I will say, if you haven't already: 1. hit slut mode. 2. Voluntarily remove clothes. 3. Fight and "win" several fights. You MIGHT see some of this in that configuration.

On the Mahir/Diezel stuff: Again, the Mahir image with the background is promotional image. The one used in the game itself has transparency. There's why there's a difference. On Diezel, again, I go through variations of things. But whatever ended up used in the game is what I settled on in the end as the preferred usage.

On enemy detection: This is not a highly-advanced stealth game. Mob detection and seeking of the player isn't even included in base MV, it has to be added via plugin. I have one toggle I can swap: direct line of sight, or proximity detection. That's it (related to this issue anyway). So I have them set to simple proximity in this case, because I didn't want the boars to not see Mezz if he went behind a corner or bit of clutter etc. Again though, first game, very basic configuration. GT is a little more refined in terms of design, although even then, possibilities are somewhat limited by existing tools. Not a bug though, just how the code works. 

"They also started walking unpredictably fast in different directions after they stopped chasing, apparently due to the fact that they are far from the places where they originally were." Again, my understanding and implementation of the chase plugin was a little crude in this first game. It works well enough to get the job done. But there are a lot of rough edges in terms of design and so on that just aren't going to be addressed in CS, because it's not worth the time investment. It runs, it doesn't crash, it's mostly reasonable and playable, which is good enough. I learn each game, and improve each game. But you have to keep diminishing returns in mind when working on projects like this. Sometimes it's better to just move on and make the next one better.

"I just can't understand what this censorship means, what exactly is censored here? I know it was done on purpose, I'm just curious."

Read the text in your own screenshots. Mezz's reality is being twisted by the clips, so he doesn't actually understand what the boars are saying. Anything that would "spoil the fun" too early just loses its ability to be processed by his brain. What SPECIFICALLY it is doesn't matter. It was just a little too much information, so the clips censored it. 

I have acquired two identical "Hard Knocks" skills. I did this after I opened a sex scene in the game where I play Diezel in normal mode and refused to completely obey by starting a cycle (this, by the way, explained to me why Mezz said that these ear clips seemed familiar to him and what incomprehensible notes he could not understand in the experimental notes, I hope that this is not true the ending, otherwise it will kill the love for this game, If there is even a concept of a true ending in this game), when I returned and I got what is shown in the screenshot.

This time I'm sure it's a bug, because I don't see any other explanation for it being done intentionally.

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(Deleted because I just realized i posted this on the wrong forum. This happens to Gutter Trash)

I'm at the club after the garden, and I cant figure out how to progress. I got a quest from Satin, but before talking to anyone else, i talked to the door guard and knocked him out. Now when i talk to anyone it still says "i don't want to draw attention to myself". But here it indicates that you have to actually talk to everyone. Is this a bug or am I stupid?

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It wants you to talk to all the dancers and workers in the club none of the hyenas if you want the answer to the puzzle i can give it to you ive done this part a few times

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ohh, ok, i got it now, thanks!

It was a little confusing because nobody talked about a mirror which made me feel like i wasn't asking about it