Himeros Hotel - Adult Adrift Adventure 1.04

[khaaleth]

hmm i'm stuck with gem story

get machine, she is training and ... i have trained to max and nothing works

[Seztworks]

Hi khaaleth

If you have finished 2 photo shoots/uploads and she has talked about working out for her next role and you have trained enough she should ask you for the next event.
If this does not help please let me know what your L: number is. In the info bar at the bottom of the screen.

[Skelaturi]

hmm i'm stuck with gem story

get machine, she is training and ... i have trained to max and nothing works

try visiting places at different times. At least thats what i am thinking of. But if you want a real spoiler.

time

7 am

place

restaurant

if you already done the 2x tasks after that scene.

19:00 training room

[khaaleth]

hmm i'm stuck with gem story

get machine, she is training and ... i have trained to max and nothing works

try visiting places at different times. At least thats what i am thinking of. But if you want a real spoiler.

time

7 am

place

restaurant

if you already done the 2x tasks after that scene.

19:00 training room

it helped .. i was wandering through whole building for one week and this time it worked ^^

btw great work Seztworks !! - for now i have one idea/feature/bug - try to connect photos with locations - for examle Gem in Rec Rom should be in this nice training clothes rather than always in black dress.

[Seztworks]

Goodie and thanks.
Your notion about different clothes is correct. I have started doing this and the plan is for it to make more or less sense for all of them once the game is done. It is extra flair so it wasn't that high on the list for the alpha. Only done it for one event so far to test it and no problem going forward. To ease into this the standard conversation picture will be portraits instead of full body shots going forward.

[redle]

As the game develops more paths you're going to really start needing to be careful about event ordering (and assumptions about such). As with many games of this nature, a lot of the order is not enforced by the game. At the same time, the "script" assumes a specific order in many places.

As an example, I can currently get Zoe to unlock the roof access as the first room I unlock in the game. As soon as this is unlocked, room 101 is also unlocked (even though it should only be unlocked by the Celeste task to meet her in her office). A second example, I can buy the room upgrade from Scruffy prior to Celeste calling me to her office. Once the room is upgraded, Celeste still eventually tells me to clean it, but the game won't let me (presumably the mold was removed by Scruffy during the upgrade, so either cleaning is an irrelevant task, or I completely lost any benefits from that branch because I didn't follow the unknown game-script order).

Also, while I can understand some of your programmatic reasons for many of the "accept task" commands, I tend to find them more problematic as a player than anything. Once again back to the Celeste stop-by-my-office task, I go to the lounge and she tells me to meet her in her office at nine (repeating my comment that this should say 21 instead). Everything about this reads as a command (i.e. a task that is assigned/accepted whether we want it or not without any input needed from us). Then, depending on whether or not 101 is unlocked (it was for me because I had already taken lotion to the roof, but may not be if you haven't done that task or typed "accept" for the office), the player waits until 21 and either can't figure out why he can't get access to the office to keep his meeting, or he goes to the meeting and can't get Celeste to speak to him at all because her event hasn't been activated. Presumably nothing is broken. The player can go on a later day and have the task presented to him again and again until eventually he "accepts". But this is vague at best, and of absolutely no help to someone sitting frustrated at 21 trying to finish a task he considers active.

The above does reiterate one of the potential benefits of a task journal. If the player could type "active tasks", or some other command, and see what tasks are currently running, this would help the above situation. While it still wouldn't be ideal, at least the player would have the ability to see that, hey, meeting her in her office is not currently running. This helps the player decide to maybe stop trying to talk to her at 21 and also gives a clue that maybe next time she says to meet her in her office that maybe the task must be accepted to continue.

If, for programmatic reasons, you do really find a need to have the player accept all of these tasks, you may want to consider contriving an object for each one. The Gem/lotion event is a good example. Whether or not it is clear to the player that he needs to "accept task" versus just automatically being assigned the task, he needs the lotion to succeed with the task. You've made taking the lotion an inherent accepting of the task. For going to the office, you could contrive something like, "You need to dock your badge with my tablet for me to unlock the first floor for you." Docking the badge could be a frequent requirement as a means of accepting tasks. Or, just as Zoe apparently had the ability to change our area access, the task could be not worth Celeste's time. She could have said, "ask Zoe to unlock level 1". Asking Zoe could start the task. As another option, Celeste holds up a new uniform/patch/medal/whatever and tells us that employee dress displays the rank of the wearer. With additional access comes a higher rank. The player needs to take and wear the new item (and thereby accepts the task). The point being, if the player needs to do something, even if what they need to do is considered a puzzle for them to solve, they certainly need to be told that something must be done.

As a random aside, it still has a bit of an odd feel that many of the Celeste tasks only happen if/when we stumble across her at the appropriate place and time. It works fine to match how the rest of the game seems to play, but from an immersion/logic point of view doesn't so much fit. If a boss wants an employee to do a job, or come to a meeting at a specific hour, they are going to hunt that employee down and make it happen (not to mention it wouldn't likely be an optional task at that point). I realize that part of the game setup is to imply that the player needs to put in normal work hours and secretly require that he do exactly the opposite of that (making him constantly skip work to be available to find any of the events to progress the story). So doing things like, Celeste wants the player to meet with her at 21, but she'll only tell him about that if he walks into the lounge at exactly 14 is both perfectly expected/reasonable/required to match the rest of the game, and totally nonsensical from a reality viewpoint. As I said, just an aside that seemed worthy of being mentioned, even if completely ignored in the end.

[Seztworks]

Thanks again redle.

You are right on most points.
The food run task was the first non-work task I implemented and it still shows my lack of Adrift understanding at that time.
It has been the one to break the most as I changed other stuff and I learned a lot from it. As with many programming languages I learned more from the failures and finding the bugs so at least that was positive.
I will for now keep the food run task as it is as I feel it shows the player that responses sometimes have to be found in the text. But I will change the reward portion in the office as this is complicated and badly implemented. Any such commands will be very clearly pointed out in the text and going forward always used directly in response to a question and not later in the day like the office event.

Regarding Celeste giving the task as out of the blue is intended. The task is not life or death or she would have forced it upon the player. The story angle is that Zoe would normally do these but Celeste moves the task to you as a test of your work ethic. If you do not accept, it is assigned to Zoe that day and you get the request again the next time it comes around.
It can be found very early as there is a info event at lunch about it or stumbled across at 14. If the player manages to avoid these for a very long time it would surprise me. But it does not break anything except progress in her path and any that are linked to that. The paths that are unlinked to Celeste will have other tasks that cross the lounge at lunch or 14 so at some point the player will see the info. Even if that might be after other paths are complete.

You point about task items (lotion) was my first attempt at removing a bunch of checks and make the item do the work so to speak.
There will be a lot more of those in the future when an item or object interaction makes sense.

Regarding who assigns what task, every character has specific jobs, areas of interest and goals. Celeste giving the food task gives a small idea about one of her jobs being in charge of any purchases for the hotel even if she might delegate any physical labor. This becomes more clear over time so later in the game when something is needed to be bought for the hotel the player knows who to contact even if the hint might not outright say so. Zoe is the one with most client contact so she would often be a good source of gossip or info. So she starts client tasks in the beginning and might give hints but later the player will have to go to her without being told if some info is needed.

The overlaps you mention with Zoe, Gem and Celeste are working as intended right now. They should work on their own. Gem should be the only one of the girls that can be done without running any other path.
I will look into changing access to the first floor so the player does not get confused by the office at that time if Zoe and not Celeste opens access to the upper floors. Same with order of cleaning the room. Having already done it with Scruffy does not stop Celeste from mentioning it as she never goes to the basement to check the state of your room. You can clean the mold as soon as Scruffy's mold adventures points it out to you. And you can only upgrade the room after doing all 3 food runs for Celeste. You might not had the office event where she mentions it but she has already put in the promotion as soon as you have proven you can complete tasks for her. It breaks nothing as far as I know.
Also will change the time as you have mentioned. (This was on my todo for my next readthrough.)
No comment about a task list at this time. Will require more feedback and testing.

Thanks for the time you put into testing and writing feedback. It is very much welcome.

[Seztworks]

I was just going over the changes mentioned in the post above and the time issue came up.
I have a question for AM/PM users.
Do you have problems with different clock references.
The example in the above post is where the boss requests you to show up at "nine in the evening".
I don't know if that is not something used/understood in your parts of the world. If it isn't please leave a comment on the examples below. I would like to use different wordings for different characters to again give them more flavor. But if something is nonsense to part of the world then it is of course not a good idea for a game like this.

Example 21 (9 PM):
9 (nine) o'clock at night.
9 (nine) in the evening.
2100. Read as "21 hundred hours". Military time.
Even going so far as. "Meet me at 9(nine)". If the context only makes sense in the evening. Like going to dinner.

This is an issue as showing the clock as being 21 is not an issue in my part of the world but writing it is weird in some sentences.
Meet me at 21. Looks okay in context of the game but feels wrong as spoken by a character.
I know AM/PM would solve the spoken structure as "Meet me at 9PM" is right in both cases. But as mentioned many posts ago I am not going to use AM/PM as this is not part of my brain structure and this game is not set in a AM/PM using country. I would also go to battle for the metric system if it came to that

Small issue but important in the long run.

[redle]

I think my post was taken a little more extreme than I intended it to be. I wasn't meaning to imply that any and all uses of the "accept task" should be removed. I was trying to point out that it doesn't always make sense.

It makes sense with the groceries because: 1. It is made clear that a player response is required. 2. You can find out your error if you don't accept while it is still the correct time and go back and accept.

The times when it doesn't make so much sense is when both: 1. Any time it isn't clear that a question is being asked. 2. Any time the task happens in the future from the time the "accept task" command must be given.

As for some of your specific responses

My point with Scruffy was that I never cleaned the mold off my walls at all. I was waiting until Celeste told me to clean it, but Scruffy upgraded my room before she asked. I don't know if I gain points in a relationship or bonus health, or anything else from cleaning the mold, or if it is just filler with no purpose. As I said, the point was, I know that the mold can be cleaned, but the game allowed me reach a situation where cleaning was impossible, even though I hadn't done it. (I don't know if this is a bug or not. Depends how you view it.)

Also, it wasn't a problem that Zoe unlocked room 101 before Celeste did (maybe it should happen, maybe not... but it didn't bother me any). The problem was that eventually Celeste did tell me to meet her in 101. I went to that room at the appropriate time. Celeste was there (presumably for our meeting, from a player's perspective), and yet there was no way to activate the storyline (because I forgot to type "accept task" several hours before). The point was, if 101 is still hidden from me until I accept that task, I give up on trying to reach her office fairly quickly (when it is actually 21). When the office is open and I'm standing right there in front of Celeste, it feels much more like my current quest is active (or that I should be able to activate it now by saying the right thing). As a player I feel like I just am not finding the right trigger word in a conversation to continue the story. So I stand in her office and try, and try, and try again. If the task is automatically accepted, or more clear that the task must be accepted, it really doesn't matter when 101 unlocks. Keeping 101 locked until it is accepted helps the player decipher where they have gone wrong.

As for overlap, was mostly a word of caution, more so than seeing a lot of issues with the current release. Often easier to think them through ahead of time than try fixing bugs later. The 2 instances I gave (101 being unlockable early and mold cleaning) are both incredibly minor. At this point though, there aren't all that many active threads. This makes overlap unlikely. That will change as you add more plotlines.

As for clock usage, I'm perfectly familiar with all the different methods of referencing time. And, yes, I can convert between them. That being said, I find that most geographic locations have a standard way to reference time there. People either tell time by the 24 hour clock, or by the split-12's. They rarely continually switch back and forth throughout the day, or have 50% of the local population doing it one way and the other half using the alternate (yes, there are some, but it always creates confusion [it doesn't confuse everyone all the time... what it does is cause the occasional mistake, which is frustrating when it happens and could be avoided if mixed terms weren't used). I think nearly everyone can make it past such an obstacle without asking for help, it's simply easier if conversions aren't needed. And, in case I wasn't exactly clear, I'm not claiming you need to write this game using everyone's preferred means of naming time. I'm saying that everyone at this hotel is at a single place and likely all use the same terminology. Since you elected to keep the game clock as a 0-24, you are effectively naming that as what these people use (as with any decision, choose what you like best; but once you choose it, stick with it).

Meet me when the clock strikes 21.
Meet me at 21 of the clock (or 21 o'clock).
Meet me 3 hours before midnight.
Meet me in 7 hours (considering that line is given at 14).
Meet me at 21 hundred hours (or 2100 hours).
Meet me at 21:00 (I would say "Meet me at 21" is less acceptable).

Any of the above would be much better than jumping back and forth between a 12 and 24 hour clock.

[Seztworks]

Hiya
Thanks for the feedback. Only wanted to give an extensive comment on an extensive feedback. Is all good.

The reward portion of food run has been rewritten to not require an accept again at 14 in the lounge. More natural this time. Also testing a small hint indication for Ask word commands in the next release for cases such as this.

Cleaning mold. It unlocks the ability to look into the hole and the linked voyeur events.
If you do not clean it be yourself after it is pointed out to you, it was intended to get clean along with the rest of the room once the first upgrade happens. Again multiple paths to the same outcome. If you don't start Celeste's path it can take some time to get room upgrades but still giving an option to get the voyeur stuff. Event order is not important and in this case at least very optional.

Overlaps are all planed and intended. I have flowcharts and excel sheets to keep things on the right path. But a bunch of the early implementations got hit by Adrift noobness and not a lack of plan for the order of things. I am slightly more confident in future additions.

Great feedback from you and the ones sending me PMs about clock usage.
I will go through it and have a hard think about what I want to go with.

[docx]

So, one about Scruffy progress

I've come to part where it says i'm at the end of Frey story, but i still don't have pictures of her for Scruffy, how do i get them?

[Seztworks]

Hiya Docx

If you have come to that point in the Frey path you should have the option to share the pictures as these are from the first scene with Frey. The striptease.
You are only able to "share pictures" with Scruffy if he has asked for it. So at a given time in his path. If he has asked you for pictures of Frey then you might have found a bug and please share your L: number with me.

[docx]

Hiya Docx

If you have come to that point in the Frey path you should have the option to share the pictures as these are from the first scene with Frey. The striptease.
You are only able to "share pictures" with Scruffy if he has asked for it. So at a given time in his path. If he has asked you for pictures of Frey then you might have found a bug and please share your L: number with me.

He asks me for her photos when I ask him about computer, but i don't see with which command i can give them to him. In game L is 04049000511. I saw that someone else mentioned that he asked for other photos as well prior to Frey, but in my game i don't remember him asking for it.

[Seztworks]

Goodie found the issue.

You have jumped ahead of events a bit with Scruffy. You need to complete the first room upgrade first before the computer is possible. Was missing a check in computer conversation for this. Fixed.
He should have mentioned fixing your room. So asking about "fix" or "room" should help.

[docx]

Goodie found the issue.

You have jumped ahead of events a bit with Scruffy. You need to complete the first room upgrade first before the computer is possible. Was missing a check in computer conversation for this. Fixed.
He should have mentioned fixing your room. So asking about "fix" or "room" should help.

He already did fix the room once. When I ask him again i get: "Scruffy doesn't appear to understand you."