Ren'Py Big Brother: Another Story Rebuild [v0.08.02] [Aleksey90]
- Thread starter Crazygamer43
- Start date
I haven't looked at his code, but being a modder myself and having worked on my own game, I suspect a lot of it has to do with how much thought he put into setting up his code to allow tweaks to game mechanics without having to go back and modify a ton of different events.
As an example, lets say your progression is based on relationshp and every event has some kind of relationship check in it to determine progression. 6 months later you decide you want to change things and add corruption as an additional determining factor. Now you have to go back and literally change every single event in the game. That would be a nightmare. If you had instead made some kind of generic function you could call for any girl that determines progression with her for a scene, then any time you wanted to tweak the mechanics for it you only have 1 function to update. Easy Peasy. Update that one function to add corruption and you're done.
A lot of devs don't think about things like that before it's too late though.
- Jul 5, 2017
- 1,231
- 2,801
And then suddenly: saves break, or even projects get aborted because suddenly too much work to be done.
Honestly, broken saves has only ever bothered me if the game is a grindfest. If the game is actually enjoyable I would rather just start a new game with each new version anyway. Most of the time there's not really any reason that a new update would break saves anyway. I think the most common reason would be if you go back and change something from a previous version so that people's current saves have their character in a status that is now impossible in the new version.
For instance let's say the dev decided the previous version made it too easy to fuck your mom or your sister. The new version makes it harder by inserting additional requirements/events to get to that point. But now you have a save where you've already fucked them without having completed some of the requirements needed to do it in the new version. So certain checks in the game will either return errors or your status will just generally be messed up. Another common one would be something like adding an additional variable for something that gets tracked as the game progresses. Except now you have a game where you already progressed without tracking that. Depending on your code, that variable might not ever even get defined unless you start a new game.
I would rather have the dev decide ok this new version requires a new save because keeping saves compatible would require adding a bunch of complexity to the code that does absolutely nothing for someone starting a new game. You don't want to double the amount of code just to preserve save game compatibility.
Last edited:
I'm confused, all the names are changed from the original BB?
No Lucy, no Jenn, and Lisa is now Alice and In game lisa is some other model lol, very confusing!
No Lucy, no Jenn, and Lisa is now Alice and In game lisa is some other model lol, very confusing!
I made the mistake of thinking BadBobby and BigBrother were the same thing. (Cause lets face it, half the models are the same, and the storyline is extremely similar)
Unrelated - is this games current version radically different from walkthrough? Nothing seems to matchup so far, like I'm in the week after having met eric, and there's no bank or research bank option on computer...
- Aug 12, 2017
- 140
- 350
I can't be very helpful as I lost interest in playing this "Another Story" long time ago.
I made the mistake of thinking BadBobby and BigBrother were the same thing. (Cause lets face it, half the models are the same, and the storyline is extremely similar)
Unrelated - is this games current version radically different from walkthrough? Nothing seems to matchup so far, like I'm in the week after having met eric, and there's no bank or research bank option on computer...
You should wait for the next version as it is a rework ongoing and (possibly) would be a different game (mechanics definitely, maybe the plot too). Saves won't be compatible for sure (dev announcement).
BTW it's the 3rd rework of the code...
There is only one model from bad bobby in big brother, what the hell
I made the mistake of thinking BadBobby and BigBrother were the same thing. (Cause lets face it, half the models are the same, and the storyline is extremely similar)
Unrelated - is this games current version radically different from walkthrough? Nothing seems to matchup so far, like I'm in the week after having met eric, and there's no bank or research bank option on computer...
- Jan 7, 2018
- 5,559
- 4,553
I'm also a developer, I hate script languages however. I prefer to precompile. In his sript I messed around a bit with the bonus cookies, nothing big. He already has a lot of functions in his code. The weak spots I noticed were about stuff like clothing options, that's more complex here than in other games. But they seem to work. No, I don't think he'll just do a code improvement, it's very likely that the story or progress will be updated as well.
But we just don't know
- Jan 7, 2018
- 5,559
- 4,553
The Extra patch activates the "memories" option, at least "most" non repeatable scenes can be seen there.
The repeatables can just be repeated
- Jan 6, 2018
- 336
- 330
Now make rebuild the game, there is nothing concrete yet. Author posted later.
Yeah I can imagine. The mod I did for Babysitter dealt with multiple clothing options for the same scene and it was a huge pain the ass. It was also by far my most common source of bugs. Mostly broken links to alternate clothing options where I happened to test the OTHER option when I play tested and missed the one that was broken.I'm also a developer, I hate script languages however. I prefer to precompile. In his sript I messed around a bit with the bonus cookies, nothing big. He already has a lot of functions in his code. The weak spots I noticed were about stuff like clothing options, that's more complex here than in other games. But they seem to work. No, I don't think he'll just do a code improvement, it's very likely that the story or progress will be updated as well.
But we just don't know
I only bothered messing with it because the base game did a lot of that stuff. After all the frustration I went through with that I consider it a lot of wasted effort for hardly any gain. IMO, it's fine to have multiple outfits for characters, but there's really no benefit for having multiple outfits for the exact same scene. By all means give them a different outfit for each scene if you want to. Just don't give them 3 different outfits for the exact same scene. That adds nothing.
Unless you're talking someone with some kind of clothing fetish, most people don't care what the character is wearing. In a game, most girls should be wearing something that is flattering but other than that it doesn't really matter what that is. Once significant progress is made with her, what most people care about is what happens when that dress hits the floor.
for me at least its not a clothing fetish, more of a progression of how comfortable the characters are with the MC. I find clothing progressions a great feature in any game. It helps justify the work put into the game.
Ok I suppose it adds more than nothing, but here's the problem. Multiple clothing options for a scene basically doubles the render time for the exact same scene. It didn't progress any farther with or without the extra clothing options. The characters aren't doing anything different depending on the clothing. The only difference is the dev had to spend twice as much time rendering the scene. It also increased the amount of coding and testing required for the scene. Probably not double, but at least an extra 30% or so.
For double the render time and 30% extra coding time, I would rather just have an extra 30-50% more content with only 1 outfit per scene. That was really the point I was trying to make. I want the girl to be doing something different in each outfit. Just wearing a different outfit isn't enough to justify the render time if that's the only difference.
For me, to get that feeling of progression I want her to progress to more revealing outfits but I also want her to be naughtier in those more revealing outfits. As an example of what I mean on the coding front, if you don't have to specifically define multiple outfits for the same scene you don't even have to define the images for the scene in renpy. That means zero broken image links without even having to test anything.
- Jan 7, 2018
- 5,559
- 4,553
Well, I like the different options when opening a door, it makes the game environment feel a bit more alive.
And when the game progresses, the chars start loosing clothing.
Of course I like the sex scenes in these games, but seeing two people do the naked bretzel is easy, there are thousands of sites for that. Also there are more than enough adult games for quickies. If I just want to see quick sex scenes, I play Glamour.
Games like this one I play for the kinky stories and to see some good renders, I really can appreciate a good pinup. And if that pinup comes in some variation, I very welcome that.
The same he does for clothing he also does for posing. Several repeatables show the same action with different poses AND different clothing for these poses.
We are easily talking about tripling the effort.
Btw, he stores only the differences in his images, has one basic naked image and then parts of it get replaced with the clothing items. I don't know if his rendering software supports that, but he could also only re-render that part of the image and ignore the rest.
Also his code is not just straight forward show one image after another. When performing some key actions, repeatable scenes change as well. The farther you progress with Alice, the more options will unlock on the couch or with the spiders, the events influence each other.
A lot of effort for the same amount of story? Yes, indeed.
But that is what makes this game great. That's what I love about it. Alexey puts a lot of effort into making it feel more alive.
He's like a cook who puts some effort into making his food taste better. Time well spent, I'd say.
Last edited: