Ren'Py Love Complex [Development Thread]

Hysocs

Newbie
Mar 5, 2024
17
8
Hello everyone,

After being captivated by NSFW games for over a year, I've embarked on creating my own game. With a solid four-year background in coding, I felt well-equipped to craft the gameplay experience I envisioned. However, I must admit that art is not my forte; thus, expect the visual aspect, including any animations, to be modest, think along the lines of Rogue-like: Evolution with its simplified visual elements. This decision stems from a desire to challenge the conventional "sandbox" game format, which I find often lacks genuine sandbox elements. Typically, these games revolve around incrementally increasing a love or relationship metric to unlock quests and repeat the cycle. This approach doesn't resonate with my understanding of a sandbox game, which sparked my motivation to create something different.

Game Overview:
The core of the game is the player's responsibility to manage an apartment complex inherited from their family. This complex, predominantly housing female tenants, demands your attention in managing income, maintaining facilities, and ensuring tenant satisfaction.

Gameplay Mechanics:
I've designed the game to be a true sandbox experience, devoid of an overarching narrative. Instead, each female character is imbued with unique personalities, traits, and ambitions. The game grants players unparalleled freedom in their actions, from stealthily entering rooms to advancing relationships with the characters at your own pace. Be cautious, though, as your choices might lead to the characters growing to dislike you.

The primary goal is to enhance NPC relationships to the point of dating. This can be achieved through various interactions, including conversations, compliments, sweet gestures, dates, and resolving conflicts or apartment-related issues. Interestingly, some issues might be orchestrated by you to shine in a heroic light.

Moreover, the game offers opportunities to earn from tenants, unlock additional apartments to meet more characters, or upgrade facilities like pools or gyms. These upgrades, in turn, enhance the stats of NPCs frequenting those areas.

As the keyholder, you possess the freedom to access any room, though such actions may have repercussions.

Art:
None... i will show off art in the future.
If you want to see my placeholder art, feel free to join my Discord. I post screenshots and updates there that aren't very tasteful.

Also tags are not known at the time besides sandbox & point & click.

Unimportant
:
A few months into the development of my game, I've established a solid gameplay foundation. This includes a dynamic NPC navigation system, an upgrades system, and a dialog system. With the art aspect in progress, I'm optimistic about presenting something playable within the next few months.

A bit about my work ethic: I'm what you might call a burnout developer. I tend to immerse myself completely in a project, delivering content and fixes consistently—weekly or even daily—over a span of a few months. Following this intense period of activity, I usually take a break.

Currently, I don't hold a traditional job, and my previous coding projects have reached their conclusion. This leaves me dedicating approximately 50-60 hours a week to development.

Info:
Contact me or find more info

I'm eager for feedback to guide the game's development, particularly constructive criticism. While positive feedback is always welcome, it's the critical insights that truly help me improve.




i grammar corrected this online so hopefully it doesn't seem to robotic, my English isn't perfect
 

Hysocs

Newbie
Mar 5, 2024
17
8
Important
I'm changing the game's concept for manageability. Players will now oversee a two-story apartment building, rather than a complex. Each floor accommodates six female tenants. Gameplay options include purchasing individual rooms, the second floor, and various upgrades for the rooms.


Things I've coded this week:

+ Framework for custom UI images (enabling easy future modifications and enhancements to UI imagery).

+ Tooltips for mouse hover on specific UI elements.

+ Events for the first visit to locations (e.g., after purchasing the pool, the first visit triggers an event with NPC 1, where she expresses her admiration for the pool, significantly boosting her love stat).

+ Debug panel

+ Cheats menu (Mainly for testing, but players can have access to it if they want.)

+ Unlock system & Unlock GUI

= Navigation system now handles the unlockable locations (e.g., Npcs wont enter a location that's not unlocked)



I've posted multiple clips and images of the game on my Discord server. I won't be sharing them here until I feel they are truly worthy of showcasing. If you're interested in seeing the game, please consider joining my Discord.
 

Hysocs

Newbie
Mar 5, 2024
17
8
Update
It's been a minute since the last update; I've been mainly working on art. I've improved the character art over working on gameplay, though that isn't to say I haven't been working on major features. However, I'm reaching major burnout due to the massive amounts of hours put into art. I've dialed my week from 40-50 hours down to 10. This will happen for a few weeks until I get that spark back, but don't worry, I always do. This update is what I've achieved with way less hours. As you can see, quality and quantity are still the same; I just have less time experimenting with new things.



Things I've coded since last time:

+ Interaction system (this includes complimenting, flirting, joking, sexual teasing, etc.).

+ Reworked navigation (instead of needing to click back a lot to move through locations, I added a map allowing you to move to any primary location instantly from any location or nested location).

+ Date scheduling (you can ask an NPC on a date and set a time; the NPC will show up at the meeting location, though the date part isn't finished yet).

+ Weighted responses (all responses are pulled based on NPC stats and mood, meaning they actually respond based on how they feel and don't just say random things).

+ Added first-time stats bumps (the first time you see an NPC naked, you get a bump in lust, etc.).

- Scrapped Unlock system & Unlock GUI.

- Scrapped first-time location visit interactions (the code is still in place, and I could even do a story with quests on top of the sandbox if needed; I created a quest GUI just in case).


I've posted multiple clips and images of the game on my Discord server. I won't be sharing them here until I feel they are truly worthy of showcasing. If you're interested in seeing the game, please consider joining my Discord.