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 XStory Player 2.1.002: A review 
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I saw a link to this game on Hongfire.com, downloaded the demo, and paid the $9 for the full version a half hour later. Congratulations. This is the most promising new H game, or rather, adult game environment, that I have seen in years. I have played the game through, and read some of the other posts. If I were not very impressed with your work, I would not have bought the full version, nor joined your forum, nor would I be writing now.

This first point that must be made is that this is not a finished game. It is a software project in active development, with many pieces still unfinished and not a few bugs. If you are looking for a finished game, look elsewhere. I am not writing a review here for the benefit of potential users, but for the benefit of the developers, who have put an enormous amount of effort in already. The functioning treadmill alone looks to me like a heck of a lot of man hours. The developers have asked a series of questions, and asked for feature requests. Rather than answer them individually, I will answer them here.

First, with respect to controllers, I recommend an agnostic approach with each function mappable in the settings.ini and eventually in a settings dialog. I use an old-skool keyboard and wheel-mouse myself, this on a laptop with no numeric keypad. I've been using WADS since... Wolfenstein 3D? Quake I? I forget. A long time. I have had a series of fancy controllers over the years. They are expensive and break quickly. I avoid them. The good ones allow keyboard commands to be mapped to buttons in any case. Unless you have reports of a specific device or class of devices which won't work at all, I would leave controller support to the controller manufacturers, or at most provide driver settings for common but problematic devices.

For switching between walk mode and cursor mode I would like both a "lock" button (CTRL), and a "hold down" toggle (E) similar to the way most games use SHIFT to run and CAPS LOCK to always run. It would make putting a half-dozen items on Samantha or pulling Tasha's skirt down that much easier. I would also like either separate up/down penis keys, or for the penis to keep its angle when adjusted with the cursor. It would be that much easier then to get it where I want it to go.

A separate thrust key or command which moves one or both characters penis length back and forth along the penis plane with suitably giggly collision in the middle would make the game usable as-is. So far, it is technically interesting but did nothing for me boner-wise.

The stereoscopic option is nice, but I wonder if it is necessary. I use Tridef3D presently, and have used nVidia's system, both with the glasses. Both work out of the box with DirectX 11 games like Civ V and Skyrim. Again, I would leave this to the manufacturers wherever possible -- unless you're bored and looking for a whole pile of extra work to do.

The 2.2.2 changes upcoming seem to focus very much on the physics engine. Since this is the core feature upon which the rest of the game is built, I would make it priority #1 to get this to a point where you can freeze it and work on other things. I woud not put too much effort into new models or stories or anything else until this is rock solid, and for all the work you've done there seems to me to be a long way to go. For this I am going to make a few assumptions about the finished product. First, I am going to assume that there will eventually be a player model, perhaps even one that can eventually be selected from a list or even customised. Second, and the main reason why I'd want a player model -- even if a semi-transparent monochrome model -- is that the FPS is nice for gameplay, but in H scenes I want a free-form camera and the ability to watch and take screenshots from any angle. Others have suggested disembodied hands, as in some Illusion games. The cursor is just fine as-is for now. Third, and most difficult, is the ability to position the characters free-form and have them hold the position when I let go, without them being impossible to lift or bending them into impossible positions. Basically, something similar to the pose editor in Thrixxx but in real time. These are core features, to my eyes the "must haves" and trying to add them in when you've already got a dozen stories and hundreds more animations would be difficult if not impossible. Limiting rotation and movement of bones to what is humanly possible, multi-body physics, collisions, self-collisions... Just thinking about the math makes my head spin. I know I am asking the impossible, but these are the core features of the killer app. Everything else is window dressing.

The two stories you have are excellent. I would hold off on the tentacles and pretty much everything else until the core of the game engine is fully functional. Only then would I add reactions (where NPC moves while fucked, orgasm, choke etc) and after that NPC actions (fuck, suck, and so on). The stuff that makes the game engine pretty. And only then would I continue with the NLP, new commands, and all the other little things that make the gameplay interesting. Scope creep and multiple late-development core changes have killed more software projects than I care to remember.

Excellent work so far, and I look forward to seeing more of it.

EDIT: Attempted to attach trace.txt failed, extension not allowed.


Wed Jan 15, 2014 12:30 pm
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Thank you for the review Taxidriver,

Good key/mouse button mapping will be available in next version. It is indeed lacking in current version.

The switching between "interactive" and "walk" mode is still in the game. Your suggestion of using SHIFT and CAPS-LOCK is interesting.

Thrusting is better implemented in next version.

The stereoscopic element is already build. Because the consumer version of O-Rift is released this year we hope to get some extra publicity out of that.

The freezing is indeed a problem. We improved the stability, but it is hard to eliminate the freezing under all circumstances because we are balancing on the edge of what is mathematically feasible.

The freezing is caused because the LCP solver gets unstable. I think future version will get more stable along the way until it is no problem anymore. A solution would be to make the physics more restricted, but that would go at the cost of freedom in gameplay.

We surely will bring you more adult gaming fun in the future.

Best regards xpadmin


Wed Jan 15, 2014 12:54 pm
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I just noticed the video with models walking and push/pull to reposition and move them. Incredible.

Release early, release often!

:)


Wed Jan 15, 2014 3:37 pm
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Both the dual-slot cooling solution and the power draw were listed as negatives at the end of the review. I can assure you that X-bit labs staff are not ATI fans.

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