- Thread starter Sezt
- Start date
Sezt, I see this is a trilogy, is this the first of the 3 games? As I can`t find the 2 others. (find one but not 2)
Also, are you only using Adrift? (the other games)
Also, are you only using Adrift? (the other games)
- Jan 4, 2017
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Adrift is still around, BBBen's PAF series is all Adrift, before Rags it was Adrift or TADS. The games were more imaginative to me, you worked out the descriptions yourself like a CYA, the images definitely help now, and a lot of these games have come a long way since then.
Adrift is still fun, but with Quest and RAGS there aren't as many of them.
Haven't played Himeros since it was initially on the Lagoon, I am curious to see the final product.
It was not as user friendly when I started out, before doing these games. I did some translation work for the guys that currently are doing Witch Trainer Russian Edition and that was in Ren'py. I couldn't imagine telling my story in that format. Even if the games are pretty VN, there are still a lot of mechanical things, that I didn't have the skills to do in Ren'py, but was easier in Adrift at that time. If I had to start now, that might be a different story.
There's no way to unblock a file that Windows simply discards. The file doesn't exist to be unblocked.
Granted that I'm a longtime fan of the series, I think the way this game works it's actually much better suited to a text interpreter than to an engine like ren'py. You have to explore a large map, which is a lot easier with quick keyboard commands like 'e' or 'n' than moving your mouse all over the place and clicking things; the load time is generally very short (the Adam and Gaia ren'py conversion, for example, is ridiculously slow compared to the HTML version on my system and I hated fumbling with those clumsy buttons); and the presence of a dedicated text box that can hold a page's worth of writing makes it much easier to read the primarily text-based sex scenes than clicking through the endless four-line boxes in your standard visual novel.
This is not, of course, to say that a parser-based primarily text game will be for everyone. While the images are great, I doubt a person who's functionally illiterate in English will get either much out of the game or be able to get very far in the text parser. The walkthrough is definitely an option there, but part of the fun of the game is exploring and stumbling on cool things. This is also definitely not a 'mindless click button until porn pops up' game. You have to think, or at least be willing to explore, and a lot of people want their porn now. But I don't think those are issues that really need to be solved so much as a fact of life about at least part of the current audience for indie porn games.
As far as the virus scanner issue goes...
Sezt, I was just thinking: have you considered releasing an alternative taf/blorb version of your Himeros games and letting people with touchy virus scanners just install the Adrift runner and run the game that way? I'm pretty sure this would help me out a lot, for example, since Avast hates Adrift .exe files and I've never figured out a way to get it to run properly without just suspending the scanner, even when I try to directly add the game as an exception. I can also confirm that my system will happily play Adrift games that aren't saved as executables (for example, an earlier Himeros Hotel version that's up on aifcommunity runs just fine on Adrift 5 on my system, and I'm running the most recent Windows 10).
This is not, of course, to say that a parser-based primarily text game will be for everyone. While the images are great, I doubt a person who's functionally illiterate in English will get either much out of the game or be able to get very far in the text parser. The walkthrough is definitely an option there, but part of the fun of the game is exploring and stumbling on cool things. This is also definitely not a 'mindless click button until porn pops up' game. You have to think, or at least be willing to explore, and a lot of people want their porn now. But I don't think those are issues that really need to be solved so much as a fact of life about at least part of the current audience for indie porn games.
As far as the virus scanner issue goes...
Sezt, I was just thinking: have you considered releasing an alternative taf/blorb version of your Himeros games and letting people with touchy virus scanners just install the Adrift runner and run the game that way? I'm pretty sure this would help me out a lot, for example, since Avast hates Adrift .exe files and I've never figured out a way to get it to run properly without just suspending the scanner, even when I try to directly add the game as an exception. I can also confirm that my system will happily play Adrift games that aren't saved as executables (for example, an earlier Himeros Hotel version that's up on aifcommunity runs just fine on Adrift 5 on my system, and I'm running the most recent Windows 10).
Thanks for the writeup Gunderson.
I have looked into making a blorb version and will most likely do so at least for Hotel, since most other issues have been ironed out in that version and for the others once I feel they are where they need to be. I ran tests during development of Hotel with blorbs and ran into a lot of compatibilty issues between different version of runners with each update of Adrift. Using my development version in the standalone removed all those issues, but did bring the virus flags. I will do some further tests.
My solution for Avast is to make an exception for a folder that I keep all my Adrift stuff in. This seems to work for me at least instead of having to make exceptions for each file.
I have looked into making a blorb version and will most likely do so at least for Hotel, since most other issues have been ironed out in that version and for the others once I feel they are where they need to be. I ran tests during development of Hotel with blorbs and ran into a lot of compatibilty issues between different version of runners with each update of Adrift. Using my development version in the standalone removed all those issues, but did bring the virus flags. I will do some further tests.
My solution for Avast is to make an exception for a folder that I keep all my Adrift stuff in. This seems to work for me at least instead of having to make exceptions for each file.
Holy crap, that actually worked! Thanks, Sezt!
As far as compatibility and preferring to realease .exe files for that reason, fair enough. Maybe it would help players like me if you could add that little tip about resolving false positive issues by excluding the game folder in the virus scanner to the first post of the thread.
VERY sceptical to games that only comes as a single .exe, so much more when it is blocked by Avast. Not touching it after that, no matter the possiblity of a false-positive
Thanks for the kind words Malaka. Always good to hear 
You might or might not be aware that the 2. game in the series is almost complete as well. Himeros Haven (Himero's Haven in search on this site). All chapter releases are save safe, so you can pick up and continue where the chapter ends. Haven is almost 50% bigger so far and easier to play. No walkthrough as of yet, but if you made it through Hotel that should not be a problem.
You might or might not be aware that the 2. game in the series is almost complete as well. Himeros Haven (Himero's Haven in search on this site). All chapter releases are save safe, so you can pick up and continue where the chapter ends. Haven is almost 50% bigger so far and easier to play. No walkthrough as of yet, but if you made it through Hotel that should not be a problem.
I can't ask Scruffy about fixing up my room after Celeste telling me to do so. Any ideas on how to get around this? The walkthough doesn't specify what the pre-requisites are.