VN Ren'Py Summer Heat [v0.6.1] [Naughty Fox Games]

[Geralt From Rivia]

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Hello, everyone!

This week we'll focus on the content we have so far, and what still remains to be created. We have passed the point of doubling the content of CH04. In quick numbers, CH05 currently looks like this:

• 2400+ renders (rendered and unrendered).
• 8 lewd animations (unrendered).

The last stretch of work consists of several hundred renders still, mainly remaining scenes of Eve, Bree and Mia.

For a good while now we're been running a big render queue, which has been in the hundreds at times. The animation frames are also all unrendered because we're rendering out the story renders first. There's still a couple of possible animations and some extra angles we'd like to do, but they're in "maybe" territory. We're opting out of cinematic and extra animations until we're able to render 24/7 in the background.

We haven't been fond of making estimations because the render times are a huge impacting factor and there are only so many hours in the day to create new content. Our current render queue for example is "only" about 90 hours if left to render continuously, plus loading times. The animations are far, far in the 100+ hours territory... but we'll look into optimizing that when we reach that point.

At this point it might be obvious what the problem is, and the good news is that we've worked towards fixing it. We are slowly building a 24/7 rendering rig. We've already done a lot of the back-end work to have it functioning with ease when it comes to file sharing, assets and that sort of thing. Our plan has been to get this rig fully functional with the release of CH05.

Choices, choices...

We also had a really long talk about the development time of CH05 and how it took over the content of CH06. We're not really happy about it, and at this point we're not as confident that we made the right call. The longer wait times are coming back around to bite us in the ass... but there's always options to consider.

After thinking it over, we boiled it down to two possible options:

A) Continue creating CH05 as we currently are.

B) Make changes to CH05, moving some scenes to CH06 to release faster.

Option A means the train keeps on chugging, no stops. We finish the evening and night content fully before releasing CH05 exactly as we envisioned it, with no scenes left out. It would still take some time to create, and especially to render. We prefer this option because it's the whole package as we planned it.

Option B means the train switches tracks. We cut the chapter right before the night content starts with the main girls and save those scenes for the next chapter. This obviously means CH05 wouldn't contain all the content we envisioned for it and might end abruptly, but it would enable us to release the chapter much faster.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Regardless, the render queue is popping off and the work continues. On the coding and SFX side of things, work has been a breeze since it's much easier when it doesn't require hundreds of hours of waiting (unless something is seriously wrong). We also edited the script and created more custom morphs for our clothing so the fabric moves more naturally.

Next week we're looking forward to focus on some intimate scenes, and more scripting.

Other news

We published June's special render of Mia earlier today. It's a little camping trip with some strip poker. In case you didn't have a chance to see it yet,

You must be registered to see the links

Cheers,

Robison & Npx

Northpx

My personal opinion is going with Option A. Do your game as planned, follow your vision. I've seen a lot of unfinished updates that have been stripped down for the sake of speed, they always seem incomplete and ragged. Usually after this I look at the screen and think: "What the hell was that?"
But you guys definitely need another power rig, it looks like you may end up in a situation where you have completed the development, prepared / posed all the renders and animations, written the code, but ... you still have a large queue of animations and have to wait until they complete.
The main thing here is to strike a balance between schedule updates and the amount of content. Resist the temptation to make the game even bigger, because then the development speed will be delayed and you will not get improvements, and some players will lose interest. According to my personal observations, some players begin to rebel after 9 months of waiting.

 

[Joshy92]

I would also go with option A
but that is just my opinion.

Also does anyone else think.
The updates are going to get a lot more complicated when they start branching paths for different characters
future updates could even take longer than this one.
Not that that matters to me the game is worth the wait imo
It is a cut above the usual stuff on here
you guys wouldn't believe some of the terrible games I have played on here lol

 

[Jericho85]

ding to my personal observations, some players begin to rebel after 9 months of waiting

Fuck em.

Option A is the obvious choice and the impatient fuckers can whine all they want. The update is ready when it's ready and I'm happy to wait. I follow a lot of these VNs and almost all of the best quality ones are on a 6+ update cycle. A few even longer. This degree of polish in digital art takes time and there's plenty of other shit to do in the meantime.

Besides... according to my personal observations, the people who to tend to get angry and start posting "milker" theories after long update cycles tend to also be the people who never donate a cent to any of these devs on Patreon.

 

[Geralt From Rivia]

Fuck em.

The impatient fuckers can whine all they want. The update is ready when it's ready and I'm happy to wait. I follow a lot of these VNs and almost almost all of the best quality ones are on a 6+ update cycle. A few even longer. This degree of polish in digital art takes time and there's plenty of other shit to do in the meantime.

Besides... according to my personal observations, the people who to tend to get angry and start posting "milker" theories after long update cycles tend to also be the people who never donate a cent to any of these devs on Patreon.

Jericho! Haven't seen you for a long time.
You're right for the most part: the new development time standard for major league VNs is 6+ months now.
As the performance of new GPUs grows, there is a huge opportunity for developers to make games bigger, with much better visuals, cinematic animations and high resolution. Top AVNs are not inferior in quality to AAA games, but in many ways surpass them.

People will ask: if the new hardware is so powerful, then why did we get updates every month 5 years ago, and now we wait so long? Maybe the developers are milking?

The answer is no. Back then we had updates of 500 renders that opened in a small window. Now it's 2500-5000 renders with animated scenes! Requests for top games are very high and developers create real interactive books with a well-developed story and characters, deep immersion in the world. Previously, 5 years ago, it was just jerk off simulators that received an update once a month.
AVN as a genre has made a huge qualitative leap.
I think these users who scream about milking simply do not understand the situation on the market for these games and want it to be like before. Well, they can just go to Pornhub, there are plenty of updates every day.
And one of these users who is grazing here is just a troll who does the same thing in all threads.

UPD:
The one problem in things you said:
Summer Heat is not yet a top VN with a captivating story, this game attracts mostly with beautiful girls. The dev started to increase the development cycle and make big updates too early. It's more important to get a large audience interested first, and only then expand the game, otherwise people can really lose interest, because the game, although good, is not a blockbuster like Artemis, BaDIK, Summers Gone, ORS and other top games.

 

[Geralt From Rivia]

I hope I'm not that "troll" just because some of you don't like to hear the truth

No, you're not a troll.
There is no truth here, but rather your vision: your priority is updating as soon as possible. I see your position and you are entitled to it.
My priority is a quality update that looks complete.

 

[Abhai]

BOOOBS
ASSES
MIA
PUS...
damn, the wrong keyboard

Here is the right one (not for mods/uploaders obviously)
Guys do you know some renpy (or similar) games from 2013?
Im not aware of any, so lets take some 2016-2017 game as an example shall we.
What do you think of its quality, renders/art wise?
Imo, thats some pretty low bar, even if the story is great and captivating, it hardly can compete with even lowest tier new games...

Personally I dont care if game update takes 1 month or 12 months.
I dont care if there is a reasonable hope the game (I love&play) could be finished one day.
There are few examples of such games. One thing those have in common is they dont have too many episodes/chapters (usually 7-8 top).

How much chapters/episodes are planned here?
Anyone knows that? devs?
If we are close to mid game now, yay, Im excited and I certainly do have high hopes for this!
If we are at the beginning (10-15-20% into the planned content), well, you can choose to live with rainbows and unicorns, fairytales no one can take from you, no matter how hard he might try

Spoiler: short elaboration

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[CHAD-MAN]

Northpx

My personal opinion is going with Option A. Do your game as planned, follow your vision. I've seen a lot of unfinished updates that have been stripped down for the sake of speed, they always seem incomplete and ragged. Usually after this I look at the screen and think: "What the hell was that?"
But you guys definitely need another power rig, it looks like you may end up in a situation where you have completed the development, prepared / posed all the renders and animations, written the code, but ... you still have a large queue of animations and have to wait until they complete.
The main thing here is to strike a balance between schedule updates and the amount of content. Resist the temptation to make the game even bigger, because then the development speed will be delayed and you will not get improvements, and some players will lose interest. According to my personal observations, some players begin to rebel after 9 months of waiting.

PTSD from the lastest Radiant "beta" update that is going to take the full 14 months to get a full release. There's no way around bad dev pratices and I rather them doing what they've planned and stick with it, improving on the next dev cycle rather than fix mistakes and say its the patrons fault. That said, they do need to plan how to improve speed because I'm not sure a 8 month window per update for 1hour tops is acceptable, especially in this phase.

 

[Jericho85]

UPD:
The one problem in things you said:
Summer Heat is not yet a top VN with a captivating story, this game attracts mostly with beautiful girls. The dev started to increase the development cycle and make big updates too early. It's more important to get a large audience interested first, and only then expand the game, otherwise people can really lose interest, because the game, although good, is not a blockbuster like Artemis, BaDIK, Summers Gone, ORS and other top games.

It's always a little different from one dev to another. Different hardware, different experience levels, knowledge, skillsets, aptitudes, etc... And I can be pretty fucking critical when it comes to VNs that I think have shit writing (you know I've had words about SG ). But one thing I'll never do is criticize how long it takes for the Dev to release his or her work. I want to see good art and good writing, and both can take a while to get it right. Sometimes delays for revisions are necessary. So it's important to me that the Dev takes all the time they need and not rush things just because of pressure from some impatient vocal minority.

 

[Geralt From Rivia]

PTSD from the lastest Radiant "beta" update that is going to take the full 14 months to get a full release. There's no way around bad dev pratices and I rather them doing what they've planned and stick with it, improving on the next dev cycle rather than fix mistakes and say its the patrons fault. That said, they do need to plan how to improve speed because I'm not sure a 8 month window per update for 1hour tops is acceptable, especially in this phase.

I think that if a dev says "This is all the fault of the patrons" then this is a red flag and such dev should be unsubscribed as soon as possible. "Bad fans", we already heard that.

It's always a little different from one dev to another. Different hardware, different experience levels, knowledge, skillsets, aptitudes, etc... And I can be pretty fucking critical when it comes to VNs that I think have shit writing (you know I've had words about SG ). But one thing I'll never do is criticize how long it takes for the Dev to release his or her work. I want to see good art and good writing, and both can take a while to get it right. Sometimes delays for revisions are necessary. So it's important to me that the Dev takes all the time they need and not rush things just because of pressure from some impatient vocal minority.

In addition, many of these people are amateur loners and often make mistakes/burn out/experience writer's block ect...
But I'm talking about general trends in the AVN genre in total.
As for SG, I will probably write to you a little later in DM, I also have a lot of criticism on this game and would like to hear your opinion. Will not arrange an off-topic here.

 

[Buck80]

So this is a yearly update sort of thing? Not bein a dick but... been 8 months so is it like every 12 months an update?

 

[fhiaofwiao]

You must be registered to see the links

Hello, everyone!

This week we'll focus on the content we have so far, and what still remains to be created. We have passed the point of doubling the content of CH04. In quick numbers, CH05 currently looks like this:

• 2400+ renders (rendered and unrendered).
• 8 lewd animations (unrendered).

The last stretch of work consists of several hundred renders still, mainly remaining scenes of Eve, Bree and Mia.

For a good while now we're been running a big render queue, which has been in the hundreds at times. The animation frames are also all unrendered because we're rendering out the story renders first. There's still a couple of possible animations and some extra angles we'd like to do, but they're in "maybe" territory. We're opting out of cinematic and extra animations until we're able to render 24/7 in the background.

We haven't been fond of making estimations because the render times are a huge impacting factor and there are only so many hours in the day to create new content. Our current render queue for example is "only" about 90 hours if left to render continuously, plus loading times. The animations are far, far in the 100+ hours territory... but we'll look into optimizing that when we reach that point.

At this point it might be obvious what the problem is, and the good news is that we've worked towards fixing it. We are slowly building a 24/7 rendering rig. We've already done a lot of the back-end work to have it functioning with ease when it comes to file sharing, assets and that sort of thing. Our plan has been to get this rig fully functional with the release of CH05.

Choices, choices...

We also had a really long talk about the development time of CH05 and how it took over the content of CH06. We're not really happy about it, and at this point we're not as confident that we made the right call. The longer wait times are coming back around to bite us in the ass... but there's always options to consider.

After thinking it over, we boiled it down to two possible options:

A) Continue creating CH05 as we currently are.

B) Make changes to CH05, moving some scenes to CH06 to release faster.

Option A means the train keeps on chugging, no stops. We finish the evening and night content fully before releasing CH05 exactly as we envisioned it, with no scenes left out. It would still take some time to create, and especially to render. We prefer this option because it's the whole package as we planned it.

Option B means the train switches tracks. We cut the chapter right before the night content starts with the main girls and save those scenes for the next chapter. This obviously means CH05 wouldn't contain all the content we envisioned for it and might end abruptly, but it would enable us to release the chapter much faster.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Regardless, the render queue is popping off and the work continues. On the coding and SFX side of things, work has been a breeze since it's much easier when it doesn't require hundreds of hours of waiting (unless something is seriously wrong). We also edited the script and created more custom morphs for our clothing so the fabric moves more naturally.

Next week we're looking forward to focus on some intimate scenes, and more scripting.

Other news

We published June's special render of Mia earlier today. It's a little camping trip with some strip poker. In case you didn't have a chance to see it yet,

You must be registered to see the links

Cheers,

Robison & Npx

Option A. We've waited for so long now that the update being ready one month sooner or later doesnt really matter anymore. Finish the update the way you envisioned it. Changing the direction now will just create more chaos. Maybe the way ch. 5 was developed is not the way to go in the future but you can change that from ch. 6 onwards.

 

[Buck80]

Am new here, just thought the game was impressive, renders and everything, but is it once per year it gets an update?

 

[Aristos]

My personal opinion is going with Option A. Do your game as planned, follow your vision. I've seen a lot of unfinished updates that have been stripped down for the sake of speed, they always seem incomplete and ragged. Usually after this I look at the screen and think: "What the hell was that?"
But you guys definitely need another power rig, it looks like you may end up in a situation where you have completed the development, prepared / posed all the renders and animations, written the code, but ... you still have a large queue of animations and have to wait until they complete.
The main thing here is to strike a balance between schedule updates and the amount of content. Resist the temptation to make the game even bigger, because then the development speed will be delayed and you will not get improvements, and some players will lose interest. According to my personal observations, some players begin to rebel after 9 months of waiting.

Totally. That's why I wrote a couple of weeks ago that introducing even more side LIs was a really bad call. The latest developments do nothing but confirm this: the last thing this game needs is even longer development times because a single second was devoted to a random side character that the players don't care about.
I'd confiscate the MC's phone during the whole camp, not gonna lie

 

[Aristos]

Well, I guess if the updates get better in the future, it will be thanks to the developers reading some of my comments here, because if it were for the "majority" that I mention jerico... maybe there would be an update every 5 years.
Regards

Nothing you think or write here will make this game better. I can't tell if you're actually so egocentric or it's just some sort of sarcasm I didn't quite get.
I don't believe you understood the 2 options properly: either you get an incomplete update with no night content and NO INTIMATE SCENES (whatever they're supposed to be), or you wait longer but get a complete update.
Honestly, I can't understand how anything would think it's a good idea to get an update out where the most anticipated content is left out, like a cliff-hanger. Maybe you should take a second to reassess your self-perceived shrewdness before offending the majority of people who voiced their POV.

 

[Joshy92]

I thought of an ending for this game what do you guys think?

At the end of the game the mc wakes up revealing he dreamed about his summer at camp
then he turns over and we see a woman lying under the blankets on his bed.

And he hears in a sweet voice "hey honey what are you doing?"
he responds, " oh I just had a dream about the time I met my beautiful wife."
The mc then goes to kiss her.
And the camera pans out and we see a tuft of jet black hair
The end

 

[JJ1960]

I thought of an ending for this game what do you guys think?

At the end of the game the mc wakes up revealing he dreamed about his summer at camp
then he turns over and we see a woman lying under the blankets on his bed.

And he hears in a sweet voice "hey honey what are you doing?"
he responds, " oh I just had a dream about the time I met my beautiful wife."
The mc then goes to kiss her.
And the camera pans out and we see a tuft of jet black hair
The end

Since when does Helen have black hair?

 

[Aristos]

I thought of an ending for this game what do you guys think?

At the end of the game the mc wakes up revealing he dreamed about his summer at camp
then he turns over and we see a woman lying under the blankets on his bed.

And he hears in a sweet voice "hey honey what are you doing?"
he responds, " oh I just had a dream about the time I met my beautiful wife."
The mc then goes to kiss her.
And the camera pans out and we see a tuft of jet black hair
The end

But before the camera pans out, the mysterious girl (MG) and the MC have a short, endearing conversation:

MG: "Oh, a dream... I hope you left out the sad parts "
MC: "Of course I did, honey! For example, I didn't dream about what Miller did to Helen, you know, when she disappeared and he cooked those weird-tasting burgers for us?"
MG: "Yeah, I still remember that. Thanks."
MC: "And I didn't dream about that afternoon when Mia stabbed the store girl... What was her name? Becca? Anyway, she stabbed her because she caught wind of my budding relationship and she didn't know I was actually with...
[Abruptly interrupts]
MG: "Yeah, yeah. Thanks for reminding me about that too. Luckily, the girl survived."
MC: "After 100 days in a coma, and now she shits in a bag".
MG: "She now shits in a bag. That's another super nice memory. Thank you again."
MC: "Not at all Oh, and you know what wasn't in my dream either? That time I had a threesome with Sophie and Bree, you know, the last night at the house. When you caught us and that made you really mad, and then you went home and..."
MG: "Will you just shut the fuck up, fucking moron??!!"
MC: "But you forgave me, because you love me."
MG: "I forgave you, because I'm an even bigger moron and love you more than anything else in the world. Kiss me!"

The romantic story that made Spielberg cry

 

[Sasanid]

Well, I guess if the updates get better in the future, it will be thanks to the developers reading some of my comments here, because if it were for the "majority" that I mention jerico... maybe there would be an update every 5 years.

Regards

Depends.

Who the fuck are you ?

 

[allanl9020142]

Totally. That's why I wrote a couple of weeks ago that introducing even more side LIs was a really bad call. The latest developments do nothing but confirm this: the last thing this game needs is even longer development times because a single second was devoted to a random side character that the players don't care about.
I'd confiscate the MC's phone during the whole camp, not gonna lie

Yea, I can't be bothered with any of the characters from the tinder-esque app. It's like the MC being served a full-course meal with every flavor you can imagine then deciding he'd rather get Taco Bell every day for the rest of his life. BITCH, WHY?! Almost everyone at the camp is a 10 and you're there looking at your phone.

 

[allanl9020142]

I don't like how these things always turn into such an extreme dichotomy. It seems like it's either "1 updATe evEry 5 yeaRs" or "UPdaTe everY mONth". All I'm saying is that I don't want something half-assed after such a long dev cycle and I know the devs don't want to make any cuts either. At the same time, I don't like the idea of people getting used to the idea of 1 update per year like it should be the norm.

So, yes. Finish it. Make it good. Make it something you'd be satisfied with. Then learn from what tripped you up so you don't repeat it. I've seen some games that update every 6 months or less with plenty of content while other games that take a year and supposedly have over 4,000 renders each update just seem like a lot of hot air/shit no one cares about/shit only a few people will see if they make the right combination of choices but no substance.

More time/renders doesn't always mean more content. I also really don't think (even with side characters) that Summer Heat could have such complex branches. It just doesn't seem like it's going to get that complicated based on the premise. I think this is a VN where we're knowingly along for the sweet ride and we're just choosing the girl we want riding with us. More renders could make it seem longer but on the flipside, you could just recycle the same set of renders for one scene if it's a conversation and it still feels the same. From what I remember, it just came down to the writing. It was good but there just wasn't a lot for a VN script.

It's their first game. They're learning. They're even setting up a rig dedicated to churning out renders. It could be argued that they had plenty of time to "learn the ropes" but working as a team can be a bitch, man. Especially when you've got a regular day job. Teamwork can make the dream work but it can also be the most inefficient thing ever. That goes double if there's no clear hierarchy even in a two-man team.

They've said this should be a one-time thing because it's like a combination Taco Bell-Pizza Hut update. I really don't think they'll be repeating this again and I honestly don't think they can afford to either. They're not DPC. They haven't garnered enough interest yet. Their only claim to fame right now is having really attractive character models because there just hasn't been a lot that's happened in the story so far.

Although, to be fair. It's been almost 8 months now. If there wasn't this constant, one-dimensional back-and-forth, there would only be posts talking about Mia maybe once a week. I've honestly already forgotten all the characters' names besides Bree, Sophie, and Mia.