Stripper Pick-Up

[redle]

It is an entertaining game with a few interesting puzzles: namely what to do with the cop and what to do with the drug dealer. I suppose how to interact with the girls could also be seen as a set of puzzles, but even after getting some good endings there, I couldn't really say what I did different to cause the difference in reactions. I enjoyed playing it, but I felt like I was just stumbling blindly through until, hey, that's new.

The game doesn't really have the explanation (not that the player doesn't figure it out soon enough), but basically the premise is, try to earn money, then try to spend it effectively at the strip club. I do feel like this game would have been improved by splitting it into those 2 separate areas. Have money gathering take place in areas outside the strip club, then go inside to spend it. Have the setup instruct the user to try to gather money for a night out. Not that one couldn't enter and leave freely, but who goes to a strip club by himself with almost no cash and expects to have a good time (not to mention actually planning to leave with more money than he went in with)?

The rest I'll throw in a spoiler so I don't need to feel bad mentioning specifics.

I'm not sure if the badge was available from the beginning or not, but I hadn't noticed it. So basically it appeared to me that slots was the only way for income. It was very frustrating in a game I couldn't create a save point to start, go straight to a random number generator and hope for multiple 'good spins' in a row. More often than not I ended up with 0 cash and had to restart the game. I spent more time trying to win money on the slots so I could try to play the game, than I did on actually playing anything.

After running out of cash, as far as I can tell, the player is dead in the water, but the game keeps letting one wander around with nothing he can do. A game over would be nice. As would being able to restart the game without reloading the whole page.

The guy at the stage always talked about the cop passing out. So that's what I was trying to make him do. He never did it. Maybe it would have been too obvious, but I think it would have been better if the guy said... "If that cop has a couple more drinks, I bet he'll be so out of it someone could probably put makeup on his face, whack him with his own baton, or tie his shoes together and he wouldn't even know it." Whatever, just something to imply that after the cop has enough drinks, I probably need to do something else to him. The current script implies that all I am supposed to do is feed him drinks until he does something interesting. He never did.

Once I finally figured out how to make money without touching the slots (so it was actually repeatable for me), then I finally got to try the rest of the game.

Some of the dialog was funny, but I really couldn't tell if what dialog choices I made had any affect on the results. Obviously choosing an, I'm done, choice caused a different result, but anything else all seemed the same to me. The guy near the stage always said the same spiel no matter what choices I said. I seemed to get the same next set of choices with the girls regardless which way I responded to them. Every once in a while a new dialog choice would magically appear and I'd choose it. Basically, I don't know how or why I succeeded with any of the girls. I got to see the story, I just don't really grasp how or why I got there (suppose some of it could be one of those fun cookie issues).

And yeah, the major bugs I noticed and recall:
viagra button disabling sex button
after drug dealer gets run off, buying condoms brings him back
badge doesn't go away after selling it

In short, the game was fun. The story/premise was decent. As a first game it was really good. Although working with experienced people, it needs to be judged a little more critically. It has more potential than it realized.

[kessie8yl]

To get to the next level of money, you have to solve a dialogue:

If you tip the dancer the guy at the stage will like you enough to have a conversation, and if you say the right things he will suggest stealing the cops badge, and he'll pay you $200. If you figure out how to steal the badge and sell it to him, you get the $200, and then win some money gambling you will have $260, which is enough to get ending 6.

That seems to have been changed:

Tipping the dancer isn't necessary to get the guy to suggest a couple more drinks will get the cop drunk, which is good because if you tip her before you talk to the guy you won't have the $20 you need to buy the cop 2 drinks. I think Leo may have adjusted this as it seems you can now tip the dancer all night long and it makes no difference at all... Maybe in a future version we could tip her until she offers a private dance?

The other thing is the guy says the cop will fall down after just a couple more drinks - but he doesn't. It took me a while to figure that one out...

Can you just clarify the bit about the amounts of money...

You say $260 is enough for ending 6 - Presumably if you have $800+ it doesn't stop you getting ending 6, it just opens up others?

What's the toilet cubicle for?

Apart from the odd textual inconsistancy, there's no chance to play different options without going back through the whole game - Even more frustrating if you get all the way back then click the wrong button by mistake... as I did

Those small niggles aside - well done. More please

[katakana132]

Man!! Can someone tell me what you think of it?! Tlaero, Phreaky, TheBrain, Shark, RKshooter, JimmyJohn, all you gamer-brainer folks, people I've beta-tested for, people who inspired me, Graen, Agrippa, Muze, Cugel, Sportd, Fleet, Dakutis, Wolfschadowe, lamont Sanford, Sylakone etc... !? It's my first game for public consumption!! (I wrote the upcoming release on LOPGold, "Living with Temptation" first, but it's not out yet). Can you give me some feedback?
I'm posting this hammered, way-fucking-drunk .
iksanabot

its a fun and challenging game, lots of options for such a short game. I really like it. I also had my first writing experience with LOP recently, I wrote Life with Sasha, which also suffered from a few bugs. I wrote the edits and some new material for the upcoming reboot to Jordan 500, that should be really fun. Good work iksanabot...and have a drink for me haha.

[tlaero]

The writing is good, and I'm glad you finally got a game with cum shots, even if you needed to write it to make that happen.

The mechanics of the game are a little iffy, though. It desperately needs a save game, especially since it has a random element. If it weren't a game you'd written, I'd have given up when I went 3 games in a row where my first two slots were losses. I think you should probably remove the slots entirely. They keep people from finding the correct path.

As for paths, you're kind of stumbling around in the dark. There's little indication which option is the right one and which isn't, so you basically need to keep trying, failing, and restarting. It doesn't feel to me like you could "play well" and choose the right path. You've got to do it by process of elimination. Without a save, that's a pain. In my games I try to make it so if you get in the right mindset, which choice is correct is clear. I don't think that happens here. Take the drug dealer. "You have the right to remain silent" vs "You've got a guy on the take?" Is there anything anywhere that you could have seen or read that would make it clear that one choice is an insta-death and guides you to make the right one?

I'm also not a fan of there being so many items in the game that aren't used. With the above mentioned lack of feedback, the unused item make you think there's more to do, so you spend a lot of time searching futilely for content that doesn't exist.

It's a good first effort, though.

Tlaero

[iksanabot]

It is an entertaining game with a few interesting puzzles: namely what to do with the cop and what to do with the drug dealer. I suppose how to interact with the girls could also be seen as a set of puzzles, but even after getting some good endings there, I couldn't really say what I did different to cause the difference in reactions. I enjoyed playing it, but I felt like I was just stumbling blindly through until, hey, that's new.

The game doesn't really have the explanation (not that the player doesn't figure it out soon enough), but basically the premise is, try to earn money, then try to spend it effectively at the strip club. I do feel like this game would have been improved by splitting it into those 2 separate areas. Have money gathering take place in areas outside the strip club, then go inside to spend it. Have the setup instruct the user to try to gather money for a night out. Not that one couldn't enter and leave freely, but who goes to a strip club by himself with almost no cash and expects to have a good time (not to mention actually planning to leave with more money than he went in with)?

The rest I'll throw in a spoiler so I don't need to feel bad mentioning specifics.

I'm not sure if the badge was available from the beginning or not, but I hadn't noticed it. So basically it appeared to me that slots was the only way for income. It was very frustrating in a game I couldn't create a save point to start, go straight to a random number generator and hope for multiple 'good spins' in a row. More often than not I ended up with 0 cash and had to restart the game. I spent more time trying to win money on the slots so I could try to play the game, than I did on actually playing anything.

After running out of cash, as far as I can tell, the player is dead in the water, but the game keeps letting one wander around with nothing he can do. A game over would be nice. As would being able to restart the game without reloading the whole page.

The guy at the stage always talked about the cop passing out. So that's what I was trying to make him do. He never did it. Maybe it would have been too obvious, but I think it would have been better if the guy said... "If that cop has a couple more drinks, I bet he'll be so out of it someone could probably put makeup on his face, whack him with his own baton, or tie his shoes together and he wouldn't even know it." Whatever, just something to imply that after the cop has enough drinks, I probably need to do something else to him. The current script implies that all I am supposed to do is feed him drinks until he does something interesting. He never did.

Once I finally figured out how to make money without touching the slots (so it was actually repeatable for me), then I finally got to try the rest of the game.

Some of the dialog was funny, but I really couldn't tell if what dialog choices I made had any affect on the results. Obviously choosing an, I'm done, choice caused a different result, but anything else all seemed the same to me. The guy near the stage always said the same spiel no matter what choices I said. I seemed to get the same next set of choices with the girls regardless which way I responded to them. Every once in a while a new dialog choice would magically appear and I'd choose it. Basically, I don't know how or why I succeeded with any of the girls. I got to see the story, I just don't really grasp how or why I got there (suppose some of it could be one of those fun cookie issues).

And yeah, the major bugs I noticed and recall:
viagra button disabling sex button
after drug dealer gets run off, buying condoms brings him back
badge doesn't go away after selling it

In short, the game was fun. The story/premise was decent. As a first game it was really good. Although working with experienced people, it needs to be judged a little more critically. It has more potential than it realized.

And, now I'm hungover...

Thanks for your comments redle, I think this is good feedback.
It did occur to me a few times during the writing that I need to make it possible to solve the game on the first try - n important principle of game design that is often brought up here. And so I did try to give some hints here and there, but I realize now I should have done more. I just thought that because there were four sex scene endings and each sex scene had three different cum shot endings, there was enough variety for multiple play-throughs to not seem too boring. That is, if you got stuck on a path to an ending you had already played, at least you could see a different end to the sex scene. So the idea was that people would typically be able to find the easiest sex-scene ending in one play-through, and the harder endings to find would become apparent after a few play-throughs

(i.e. you find the cop arrests you ending, and then realize that you maybe need to feed him a few drinks before you try swiping his badge. And you find the drug dealer beats you up ending, and you realize you can't threaten him with arrest unless you have a badge, and you probably shouldn't start reading him his rights unless yo actually know them past the first line we all learn from movies.

I also just imagined that people were just going to look through comments of previous players and find the best way to gather money that way, but that shouldn't be a guiding principle of game design, I understand it was a mistake.

I see that you are right that the goal of the game is not clear at all. I kind of put it into the introduction that the goal is to get release, but I see that I should have made it clear that getting that release is most dependent on whether the player can find some way to get more money to spend on dances, drinks, drugs, and on sex-acts-for-sale. I guess it's too late to fix it now, but for subsequent games I will definitely be asking myself, "is the goal and the path to that goal clear?"

Regarding the dialogues, I did try to make two clear paths in what you can say, you can try and be nice/funny so that the stripper likes you, which leads to the non-prostitution endings, or you can be upfront about your desire to get satisfaction from you money, which encourages the stripper to suggest an act of prostitution. Originally I was going to add a non-prostitution sex scene with just Angel and Devil (no Mistress) as well, and so as a reward scene that might have helped make the two dialogue paths more clear, but in the end we were already at as many images as we could include in a free game, so I eliminated it.

And yeah, I see that I should have had a clear game over if the player runs too low on money. Sorry about that.

Thanks for playing ,and thanks for your comments.

[iksanabot]

To get to the next level of money, you have to solve a dialogue:

If you tip the dancer the guy at the stage will like you enough to have a conversation, and if you say the right things he will suggest stealing the cops badge, and he'll pay you $200. If you figure out how to steal the badge and sell it to him, you get the $200, and then win some money gambling you will have $260, which is enough to get ending 6.

That seems to have been changed:

Tipping the dancer isn't necessary to get the guy to suggest a couple more drinks will get the cop drunk, which is good because if you tip her before you talk to the guy you won't have the $20 you need to buy the cop 2 drinks. I think Leo may have adjusted this as it seems you can now tip the dancer all night long and it makes no difference at all... Maybe in a future version we could tip her until she offers a private dance?

The other thing is the guy says the cop will fall down after just a couple more drinks - but he doesn't. It took me a while to figure that one out...

Can you just clarify the bit about the amounts of money...

You say $260 is enough for ending 6 - Presumably if you have $800+ it doesn't stop you getting ending 6, it just opens up others?

What's the toilet cubicle for?

Apart from the odd textual inconsistancy, there's no chance to play different options without going back through the whole game - Even more frustrating if you get all the way back then click the wrong button by mistake... as I did

Those small niggles aside - well done. More please

Hi kessie8yl, thanks for your comments.

You're right, I just checked and tipping the dancer doesn't matter. It was supposed to unlock the conversation with the guy at the stage. And I think it would be great to have another scene in the game that includes the dancer at the stage. One of my personal principles of erotic game design is that no attractive girl should appear in the game unless you can get have a sex scene with her. I broke my own rule with this one, and I wont do it again. The game isn't doing so well on PF1 (in terms of player-ratings, it's being played LOTS though), so there doesn't seem to be any reasons to contemplate expanding it, but if I did I would definitely include a scene with the stage dancer.

Sorry that that line about the cop passing out was misleading. It was a hint to get him the two drinks, but it wasn't meant to be taken literally. I see now that I should have made the line something more obviously not a real prediction (like "another couple of drinks and I bet he wouldn't notice if I put a kick-me sign on his back")

To be clear, if you figure out how to ge the most money, then you can get any ending you like, you are not locked onto ending 7 by having lots of money.

Tlaero mentioned the cubicle as well, I will comment on that in a second when I get to her post.

Thanks for posting about this.

[iksanabot]

Man!! Can someone tell me what you think of it?! Tlaero, Phreaky, TheBrain, Shark, RKshooter, JimmyJohn, all you gamer-brainer folks, people I've beta-tested for, people who inspired me, Graen, Agrippa, Muze, Cugel, Sportd, Fleet, Dakutis, Wolfschadowe, lamont Sanford, Sylakone etc... !? It's my first game for public consumption!! (I wrote the upcoming release on LOPGold, "Living with Temptation" first, but it's not out yet). Can you give me some feedback?
I'm posting this hammered, way-fucking-drunk .
iksanabot

its a fun and challenging game, lots of options for such a short game. I really like it. I also had my first writing experience with LOP recently, I wrote Life with Sasha, which also suffered from a few bugs. I wrote the edits and some new material for the upcoming reboot to Jordan 500, that should be really fun. Good work iksanabot...and have a drink for me haha.

Thanks Katakana132! Congrats on your first game as well! I didn't think I was going to care so much about how well the game does, but I can't stop checking this board and the PF1 comments. I'm so disappointed people aren't liking it more...

looking forward to the Jordan500 reboot.

[iksanabot]

The writing is good, and I'm glad you finally got a game with cum shots, even if you needed to write it to make that happen.

The mechanics of the game are a little iffy, though. It desperately needs a save game, especially since it has a random element. If it weren't a game you'd written, I'd have given up when I went 3 games in a row where my first two slots were losses. I think you should probably remove the slots entirely. They keep people from finding the correct path.

As for paths, you're kind of stumbling around in the dark. There's little indication which option is the right one and which isn't, so you basically need to keep trying, failing, and restarting. It doesn't feel to me like you could "play well" and choose the right path. You've got to do it by process of elimination. Without a save, that's a pain. In my games I try to make it so if you get in the right mindset, which choice is correct is clear. I don't think that happens here. Take the drug dealer. "You have the right to remain silent" vs "You've got a guy on the take?" Is there anything anywhere that you could have seen or read that would make it clear that one choice is an insta-death and guides you to make the right one?

I'm also not a fan of there being so many items in the game that aren't used. With the above mentioned lack of feedback, the unused item make you think there's more to do, so you spend a lot of time searching futilely for content that doesn't exist.

It's a good first effort, though.


Tlaero

Thanks Tlaero, I'm really glad you played it. I thought about you a lot while I was writing it, very nervously. Because of your preference for writing female characters with strong character, I was worried you would be offended at my characterization of strippers, and at how the Player's dialogue choices show some disrespect toward them. I assure you that in my other games I won't be so much like that, I guess I just felt like the subject matter was sleazy, so sleazy characters with a sleazy attitude worked in this game.

I agree that the slots were a mistake. I think the low ratings on PF1 are due in part, maybe in large part, to people getting frustrated at the slots and then giving it a zero. I may never include a random element in a game I make ever again but if I did, I would make sure to include a save point.

I see what you mean about there being no clear path. It was commented on above by redle too and I addressed that in my response to his post. Seems obvious in hindsight - but live and learn, I won't make that mistake again.

And regarding the cubicle and condom machine, and other useless items: Yeah, sorry about that . The condoms were going to be necessary for one of the endings at one point, but it was getting too complicated and so i took that out but left them condoms in. Next time I will make sure to remove any items if I remove their purpose. Same with the toilet stall,

At one point, if you went into the bathroom and saw the dealer before getting the badge, it was going to be necessary to go in the stall immediately, and then leave otherwise the dealer would recognize you later when you tried to trick him into thinking you were a cop.

Obviously this was way too hard and complicated, so I eliminated it, but left the stall. Again, I have learned now that it's important not to include anything that has no purpose.


Thanks again for playing it and for your comments. I'm excited to see what you think about my LOPGold game, Living with Temptation, that should be released sometime this month. It suffers from fewer of these problems I think, and the path is clear right from the start because it's a sim game like Living with Britney - just figure out the best way to build your stats quickly to unlock scenes. But when play testing, I'll have these comments in mind.


Best regards, iksanabot

[Joxx]

Hi iksanabot!
Just read, that this was your first game and specialley therefore, you did a real good job!

Sure, the (above mentioned) dialogues with the girls in the VIProom were trial and error for me (possibility to save the game before would have been great), but the endings were worth the trouble
I liked to work out the right way with the officer, the dealer and the customer! The slot machine was a nice gimmick and I hadn't discovered the condome machine until i read of it within this thread.
Only thing I've missed was action with the stage-dancer (Writing this an additional "easy" ending after a certain number of thrown out bills, the condome machine and the toilett stall comes into my mind ).
But this is criticism on a very high level as Stripper Pick-up is already a good game!

[iksanabot]

Hi iksanabot!
Just read, that this was your first game and specialley therefore, you did a real good job!

Sure, the (above mentioned) dialogues with the girls in the VIProom were trial and error for me (possibility to save the game before would have been great), but the endings were worth the trouble
I liked to work out the right way with the officer, the dealer and the customer! The slot machine was a nice gimmick and I hadn't discovered the condome machine until i read of it within this thread.
Only thing I've missed was action with the stage-dancer (Writing this an additional "easy" ending after a certain number of thrown out bills, the condome machine and the toilett stall comes into my mind ).
But this is criticism on a very high level as Stripper Pick-up is already a good game!

Thanks, man!

[Super]

I always wondered the process for being a writer for one of these games (i.e., how you managed to write it and someone else did the art). Whatever it is, my idea is more tlaero-style game and not lop engine, so I guess it's pointless.

Anyway, game was ok. Writing was good, although not really a fan of the subject material. Also not a fan of items that aren't used, and I would have liked a way to keep track of if I was answering the correct questions or not.

[kessie8yl]

To get to the next level of money, you have to solve a dialogue:

If you tip the dancer the guy at the stage will like you enough to have a conversation, and if you say the right things he will suggest stealing the cops badge, and he'll pay you $200. If you figure out how to steal the badge and sell it to him, you get the $200, and then win some money gambling you will have $260, which is enough to get ending 6.

That seems to have been changed:

Tipping the dancer isn't necessary to get the guy to suggest a couple more drinks will get the cop drunk, which is good because if you tip her before you talk to the guy you won't have the $20 you need to buy the cop 2 drinks. I think Leo may have adjusted this as it seems you can now tip the dancer all night long and it makes no difference at all... Maybe in a future version we could tip her until she offers a private dance?

The other thing is the guy says the cop will fall down after just a couple more drinks - but he doesn't. It took me a while to figure that one out...

Can you just clarify the bit about the amounts of money...

You say $260 is enough for ending 6 - Presumably if you have $800+ it doesn't stop you getting ending 6, it just opens up others?

What's the toilet cubicle for?

Apart from the odd textual inconsistancy, there's no chance to play different options without going back through the whole game - Even more frustrating if you get all the way back then click the wrong button by mistake... as I did

Those small niggles aside - well done. More please

Hi kessie8yl, thanks for your comments.

You're right, I just checked and tipping the dancer doesn't matter. It was supposed to unlock the conversation with the guy at the stage. And I think it would be great to have another scene in the game that includes the dancer at the stage. One of my personal principles of erotic game design is that no attractive girl should appear in the game unless you can get have a sex scene with her. I broke my own rule with this one, and I wont do it again. The game isn't doing so well on PF1 (in terms of player-ratings, it's being played LOTS though), so there doesn't seem to be any reasons to contemplate expanding it, but if I did I would definitely include a scene with the stage dancer.

Sorry that that line about the cop passing out was misleading. It was a hint to get him the two drinks, but it wasn't meant to be taken literally. I see now that I should have made the line something more obviously not a real prediction (like "another couple of drinks and I bet he wouldn't notice if I put a kick-me sign on his back")

To be clear, if you figure out how to ge the most money, then you can get any ending you like, you are not locked onto ending 7 by having lots of money.

Tlaero mentioned the cubicle as well, I will comment on that in a second when I get to her post.

Thanks for posting about this.

...and thank you for taking the trouble to give such a detailed reply.

I hope you're not too discouraged by anyone's comments. It's still a pretty good game by anyone's standards - no matter that it's your first attempt at this type. There's obviously been a lot of thought gone into the game - and from things I've read elsewhere, some of the ideas that didn't make the final cut were pretty good too (although I wouldn't count the toilet cubicle among them )

I was actually too occipied trying to play the game but having read Tlearo's observations I think she's got it just about right...

I'll certainly be looking out for your next adventure.

[kessie8yl]

There are 7 endings, 4 or which are sex scenes, and each sex scene can end with different options for cumshots.
iksanabot

...

I just thought that because there were four sex scene endings and each sex scene had three different cum shot endings,
iksanabot

Funny, I thought you said 4 sex scenes but I only just saw it again... If 4 is correct then I must have missed something:

1) "Mistress" alone
2) Angel & Devil 3some and
3) All 3 strippers together....
We've already established there's no sex scene with the dancer - So what's the fourth?

[ianopolos]

I got to say that lessonofpassion games are getting much harder than before.
For example in this game i dislike that i earn money gambling and have to restart game many times to gamble again until get $.

[Brigma]

1) "Mistress" alone
2) Angel & Devil 3some and
3) All 3 strippers together....
We've already established there's no sex scene with the dancer - So what's the fourth?

You can get a BJ from Mistress