My John Thomas - New Project

[simarimas1]

Ok. I have been working on this for a little bit, and wanted to get some input on it so far.

You play as John Thomas, a junior partner at an investment firm. I have not created the opening sequence yet. This starts with you sitting at a computer checking your emails.

The game so far ends when you get to the waitress, so after is a deadlink.

I am completely new to Daz3D, (about 3 weeks working with it so far) and you can probably tell as the game goes on, how much the renders change.

the 5 girls in the office are all part of the game, so can be 'dated'. Though that part of the game isn't in here. There will also be more girls met along the way.

I am open to, and would appreciate, any criticisms you may have.

Thanks to Tlaero for the AC and the help. Thanks to Wolfschadowe, Superawesomemans, and kexter, for the coding help. and thanks to youpala34, for the input so far on content.

UPDATE
I have uploaded the latest version
http://www.mediafire.com/download/fquaqqweqm6b0kf/JohnThomas.zip
Click on the Begin file in the Files folder to start the game.

I have uploaded the latest version.
FIXES AND CHANGES
I have redone the speech portion, so that the girls speech is now at the top of the page, as opposed to part of the image.
Some renders were redone for more expression from the girls, to show their attitude a little more.
The hostess' jeans were removed for a skirt, to fit the restaurant atmosphere better, and the waitress was changed completely.
I made an 'Ending' so there is no page not found error, and this takes you back to the beginning.

I have added in one girls conversation arch during dinner. The others will all have this as well, but are being worked on.

Thanks again for any and all feedback on this. And for the kind remarks so far.

[Super]

Oh hey, a bit of some things I saw as I went through:

1. When you click on Start, it doesn't go straight to _begin. I had to go to _begin in the Files folder. I actually had the same problem in Celina, and Sy had to do it outside of Adventure Creator. No clue how.
2. on meeting.htm, you have the same thing twice. I would just have it be on the center instead of giving the illusion of two options
3. On meetingspeech1.htm, you have a . in the center. Only have any text in there if you actually have any reason to do so, otherwise it's just an empty box
4.Same with meetingpseech2 I see. Probably want to change it for any other ones. Just leave text boxes you're not using empty
5. Interesting on having the other girl's talk on the image itself... I don't know how I feel about it, but I'll leave it to other people to decide if it's good or not
6.On carrieofficebrnogo1, there is a . in front of the text box response
7.For margretphone1, is there a difference between "Yes" and "Hello"? If one is supposed to be more friendly, may want to make that more obvious.
8. When following the hostess, I would suggest differentiating between "I will follow you anywhere" and "Lead the way". Have different pages for the response so that we might get a better grasp of how we're doing. Keep that in mind the whole way, really. This might be a place where you can have the other girl's text at the top of the screen, as it will allow you to reuse images for similar reactions while still having them say different things.
9. This is entirely personal, but I feel that the individualized image titles may make it harder to keep it organized, especially if you have a scene appear twice. Whatever works for you though, really.
10. Also, I took the girl to the steakplace but she didn't show up when I arrived, like I saw she should have in the pictures

[simarimas1]

Thanks for the input, Super!

1- I will check into this. When I created the shortcut, I checked it. And it worked for me. But I didn't check it after uploading it. Thanks.
2- I will check on that with the meeting having the same thing twice.
I will also check all the text boxes again. I have actually gone back and changed a few of these already. I have created quite a bit more beyond this, and went back and changed some things earlier as well.
5- I tried to think of a way to have the speech of the other characters in a fashion that it would be easily seen. If it doesn't work for everyone, I can look to changing it.
7- There is a slight difference in how you answer the phone with Margret. I will look into making it a bit more obvious.
8- At this point, following the hostess doesn't have any effect on the hostess at all, as she is not yet a 'dateable' character. The effect is on Carrie, if she is with you. This is why there is no response from the waitress. The same goes with looking at the waitress.
I also do use the same images, I just change the text when needed. It is pretty simple to do when I do it. I personally don't like the top text, and the few early pages will not have it on there when completed.
9- The individual image titles at this point help me in creating, knowing where I am etc. Before final completion, I plan on going back and changing all the page names to a numbering type system.

May I ask what you thought of the renders? The girls? Of the game play? I know it is short so far, though I tried to leave quite a few different avenues.

[ltpika]

Pretty good start and funny name for the main character. It's "pour the wine" though.

[redle]

This is more a proof of concept then anything else. So I realize some of the things that seem like bugs are simply work in progress. I'll throw out a few comments that hopefully help at least a little.

1. The "Start" link has a full path name in it. So it's referencing your "JW" user's folder. Unlikely any of us will just happen to end up with it in such a location. So that's why it doesn't work for others.
2. The image map coordinates seem shifted a bit to me. It's as though the coordinates were setup and then the images were stretched to make them wider. (for instance, looking at girls in the meeting; the further left the girl is, the more likely her "look" button is over her face. By the time we get to Ms. Foster, her link is well left of her. Another example is knocking on Carrie's door. The link is left-shifted there as well)
3. It's up to you how much you want your game to play as a "find the right pixel" game or not. Doing that in a game does add a little bit of a challenge (although completely unrelated to the story being told). It isn't necessarily a bad thing. That being said, there are certain scenarios where it is better to make choices obvious. The first one that comes to mind is the email. You are presenting an image of someone looking at a computer screen. I would suggest putting some sort of "email software" frame around it. Basically, have the image show a button that says next email, and one that says, back to inbox (or close, or whatever). It's a simple fix and players won't need to hunt around to figure out how to get out.
4. As for the text being part of the image, I wouldn't say I have any problem with it as far as game play is concerned. The problems, as I see them, are that it may significantly increase the file size of your downloads and it may be harder to spellcheck/correct errors. If many of your scenes are repeated with different text, you could end up with a lot of duplicate images with slight variations. You don't have large, high-def images, but they still use a lot more bandwidth and storage than text (the girls' conversation in the office hallway currently has 8 duplicate versions already and this is just an intro with limited branching).

Otherwise, looks like a solid start. So many women showing up might make this a rather ambitious project for a first go though (not a criticism by any means. Just a warning. Things like to put text on images or not to put text... A small game can let you get a feel for how you want to do things and be reasonable to completely revamp it all as you change your mind or leave it as is, knowing better for next time. The bigger it gets, the more you may not want to try something new simply because you don't feel like replacing all the existing instances).

Renders were decent. Not sure I buy that the hostess at a nice steak-dinner place is allowed to come to work in jeans, but I tend to find those sorts of "features" to be amusing, rather than off-putting. Work with what items you have in your 3D collection. I'm certainly not going to expect you to spend money to buy her the perfect outfit for a game you're letting us play for free (just the standard, when someone asks for a critique, I feel obligated to point to something that could be improved). As a whole, I liked the look and feel.

Game play had a few oddities, like those Super mentioned (a period as an available text option or duplicate options). It also had a few pixel hunt for options (none of the hotspots appeared tiny though, so that was good) screens. For the most part though, I found it pretty clear which bits of text were the "flirt", "business-like", or "super-polite" options. I didn't necessarily have any way of knowing how a girl might react to any given option, but I could tell how I was presenting myself.

[simarimas1]

Pretty good start and funny name for the main character. It's "pour the wine" though.

I wondered if anyone would get the name. I thought I had fixed the Pour the wine, but may have only done it in my working files.

Thanks!

[simarimas1]

Thank you the thoughts redle.

To some of your critiques, in no particular order.

I seriously had not considered the image/download size of having the text as part of the image. I willtry some without text on the image and see what I think. It may be the smarter way to go.

I have no desire to make the game a pixel hunt. Great suggestion for the email page. I will implement it. I want any page click areas to be large and easy to find, as much as possible. I will also look into the area coordinates issue. When I first started AC wouldn't work on my laptop resolution, so I forced it to a larger resolution, which may be where that issue came from.

As for the 5 girls being ambitious. Yeah it is, but I have this idea and wanted to run with it. I love the challenge and it keeps me interested. I never do things small, must be a Texas thing, haha.

I completely agree with you on the hostess being in jeans. When I created her I didn't have many clothing options. That is no longer the case, so I will redo her outfit. Will also be redoing the waitresses, as I don't like her outfit at all.

I have been adding more 'emotion, to the girls reactions in the restaurant scenes, so depending on your choices it will be easier to know how you are doing.

Thanks again for the input. Exactly what I am looking for.

(Ps. I am writing this on my phone, so I apologize for any typos).

[ludwig]

hi
got a Error at :

File not found

Firefox can't find the file at /home/ludwig/Documents/downs/jdowns/JohnThomas/JohnThomas/JohnThomas/Files/girlsarrivedinner.htm.

Check the file name for capitalization or other typing errors.
Check to see if the file was moved, renamed or deleted.

can't go back to see where is comes from

[simarimas1]

That may be the end of what I had so far Ludwig. In the next zip, I will put an ending page up.

Just restart to go through the other scenarios. This is still a work in progress, not the full game.

Thanks!

[ludwig]

That may be the end of what I had so far Ludwig. In the next zip, I will put an ending page up.

Just restart to go through the other scenarios. This is still a work in progress, not the full game.

Thanks!

thank you for the quick reply! Yes, it would be fine to mark the ends for the testings. Would be much better to know whats an error to tell you and whats "work in progress".

btw: great work, i have much fun going through your game, thank you!

[simarimas1]

Thank you Ludwig. I will be sure to add an ending page in the next update.

[simarimas1]

I just wanted to update everyone.

I am still working on this project. I have gone back and removed the text from the photos, as suggested, and made a few other changes, and am adding the dinner portion. I will post an updated version in the next few days.

[caravaggio]

Glad to hear it, the game seemed promising

[simarimas1]

Thanks caravaggio, I hope so.

There is a new link for the latest preview of the game in the first post. Here is the link again, just in case.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/fquaqqweqm6b0kf/JohnThomas.zip

[ares]

Thanks caravaggio, I hope so.

There is a new link for the latest preview of the game in the first post. Here is the link again, just in case.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/fquaqqweqm6b0kf/JohnThomas.zip

If I may ask, how much can we expect to achieve in this preview? Is there a coherent piece of the story that reaches a satisfactory conclusion or every path is still half way done?