From the Devs: Updates and Fixes

Poot Poot Poot! A mainline Bokumono game set in a resort town that wants to be more resort-y. Available for Nintendo Switch, Steam/PC, and Ps4/5. [ Game Guide ] JP release = Feb 2021. NA = Mar 2021. EU = Mar 2021.
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Starrynight28
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Ronin19 wrote:"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."
*laugh-cries in Cyberpunk*

For real, though, I'm very relieved to see a dev response like this. I sort of figured we would have one once the producer went AWOL on twitter...that's the sort of thing that just isn't acceptable in Japan where responsibility
Spoiler:
for everything but war crimes
is paramount.

I personally hope for portraits in the update, but I know I'm going to play regardless. What I may do is play one playthrough immediately and then put it aside and come back to it once the DLC/patches have released. The second playthrough is always better anyway because you know what you're doing and don't waste time/resources learning.

I know my interest in this game will quickly drop to zero when RF5 comes out, so I want to play it fully by then.
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Redtutel
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Starrynight28 wrote:
Ronin19 wrote:"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."
*laugh-cries in Cyberpunk*

Yeah, that phrase isn't really game development advice so much as it's a proverb. A saying that's kind of true but ignores the nuances of life.


Plus...game development has changed a TON since he first said that. Launch stopped being the end of development about a decade ago.
ChaosAzerothCat
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Redtutel wrote:
Starrynight28 wrote:
Ronin19 wrote:"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."
*laugh-cries in Cyberpunk*

Yeah, that phrase isn't really game development advice so much as it's a proverb. A saying that's kind of true but ignores the nuances of life.


Plus...game development has changed a TON since he first said that. Launch stopped being the end of development about a decade ago.
Perhaps, but not delaying because games can be patched has become upsettingly prevalent. Look at all the games that have day 1 patches.

I guess a better saying might be you can only make one first impression?
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Burning Spear
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ChaosAzerothCat wrote:Perhaps, but not delaying because games can be patched has become upsettingly prevalent. Look at all the games that have day 1 patches.
Let's face it: Patching is a way of life. I see it in my business too. The company is desperate to claim revenue for a quarter or fiscal year, so the product goes out the door in whatever state it's in. And it gets patched later ... if the production team isn't pulled off to chase some other revenue source. The scary part, I believe, is that as this becomes even more prevalent, the initial releases will become thinner, and the games will only be fleshed out if the initial sales are promising. Like a free-to-play mechanic but with money down. As consumers, we need to resist this. Game companies need to stop borrowing time and release the full game when it's ready. Then you can do DLC if you like. Nintendo is actually pretty good about delaying games until they're ready, but most other companies are chasing the immediate dollar and making the gamer bear the burden.
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Anonymous Fish

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One immersion feature that could possibly be removed is having to press A to leave your farm/other places (if you have to press A for every new screen).
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Bluie
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Uh, any word on if they're fixing the 'glitch' that kills your child if you get divorced?

https://soranews24.com/2021/03/04/getti ... your-kids/
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Anonymous Fish

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I don’t think that’s a glitch, divorce seems more like a redo/rewind than a real divorce. I guess they don’t want you running around with a bunch of kids from different parents.
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Blue Rose
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Yeah that's 100% ripped from SDV where you can turn your kids into doves.
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Bluie
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At least in SDV you can choose to keep your kids even if you're divorced. This feels like extreme laziness in contrast. Not only do you not lose any affection with your ex, but your kid gets voided out of existence.

Like, "Sorry, little Johnny, but mommy and I don't want to be together anymore, so it's the black hole for you!"

Could've made it dynamic, could've done something interesting with remarrying while having a child, but nah, let's magic away everything.
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K8sMum
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To be fair, it is a video game. It's not like they are murdering real children. It would most likely be a massive job to handle the presence of all the children possibilities and the exes.
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Anonymous Fish

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If the kid didn't disappear, the player could, theoretically, have a child with EVERY bachelor and bachelorette in one file (and this is before the DLC bachelor/ettes arrive.) This would lead to a programming nightmare for a multitude of reasons, and they'd have to dedicate a large swathe of time and money into just this one feature. I also think saying 'kill' the kid is a bit dramatic, when it's a rewind feature at best. That article is being extremely clickbait-y.

Personally, I would've just not included a divorce/rewind feature, but I understand its inclusion; in case you marry somebody and aren't happy with them, being the main reason I assume.

I also just personally take umbrage with game devs being called 'lazy' in general. I've seen what 'lazy' games look like, and Olive Town isn't one of them, warts and all. I think it's easy to accuse game devs of being lazy when they take the simplest route to a solution, and it's easy to say 'well, they could've done this, that, and the other thing, like this other game did' without actually knowing the logistics of how feasible that actually is for that particular project (Olive Town, in this case). Sure, I think the child being deleted is pretty strange, personally, but I also don't have any ideas for how they realistically could've done it alongside including the rewind feature.

I think this forum as well as most gamers in general would do well with checking out Ask A Game Dev on tumblr, who has a lot of interesting insight into how games get made on the professional level. Maybe somebody here could ask about Olive Town, if they were so inclined.
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Blue Rose
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They could've kept the divorce option and not delete the kid and just have no second kid with the new spouse. Locks you in with the kid of your first marriage but at least allows the remarriage (especially since I think the kid is based on your appearance anyway? But idk for sure). There would have to be extra coding for specific dialogue with the rebound spouse but otherwise you don't have to do all that much in theory.

But I agree it's not a huge deal at the end of the day. And I'm not super upset on the rewind/divorce and "dove your kids" features as additions as while I'll never use them; Im sure it's helpeful for those who are indecisive or regret their choice but don't want to start over a whole new file.
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Bluie
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Anonymous Fish wrote:I think this forum as well as most gamers in general would do well with checking out Ask A Game Dev on tumblr, who has a lot of interesting insight into how games get made on the professional level. Maybe somebody here could ask about Olive Town, if they were so inclined.
Are you seriously lecturing me on how game development works? Because I had an opinion on my distaste for how a feature is carried out? Please sit down from your preacher's pedestal. They could have have made it dynamic with keeping the kid - special dialog, special events, making it more inclusive. You could be locked out of having a specific amount of kids. Or they could've even done something similar to the doves in SDV instead of the child just disappearing. Or how about the kid being taken away by your spouse? I could go on, but you get the picture. The fact that the kid just gets erased doesn't strike me as peak game design, it instead feels like a rushed feature. I am fully aware how long and how difficult it is to make games on a professional level, painfully so, but I can see a half-assed feature from a mile away no matter how much effort was put into the game.

This thread it literally about how the game is being fixed post launch and how the Japanese players have more or less been beta testers. Take 'umbrage' with me all you like, it's not changing the fact that this game released initially half-baked.
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I think people are getting too worked up over this issue of "divorce". The option is probably there to allow you to get married to different people without having to start a new file and that it essentially is just going back in time to before you got married and not an actual divorce.

I work in programming (not game programming but just general programming) and what may seem like something not too complicated can often times be much more complicated than it seems, even with programs that seem simple. I haven't played Stardew Valley so I don't know how it was handled there, but I don't even know how you would go about dealing with all the possibilites if you had to keep children for each marriage. Just seems like a headache.

I think to avoid feeling like it's somehow a half-a**ed feature is for the game to not call it divorce but like, travelling back in time to before you got married. How is it called in the japanese version? Does the game call it divorce or is that just what people are calling it?
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Bluie
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I've worked in programming too, and I get it, I do. I'm clearly the only one here upset over this feature, not because it's 'divorce', but due to the fact of how it's handled. It's a really weird decision and I'm irritated that they decided to go with an 'easy' way out instead of making it interesting. There is literally an entire Reddit thread of people clowning on this feature because of how oddly it's carried out.



In SDV, when you divorce, you lose all your affection with your ex and they will act cold to you. You keep your kids, and if you want to get rid of them, you must turn them into doves. It's weird, but it works a lot better than unexisiting a character in the game.
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