[RELEASE][FEEDBACK] Save men v0.4

[Dr.Moonlight]

Hello everyone,

Today I release Save Men v0.4

As usual, I worked very hard on it. There won't be a detail on changes here (compared to other versions you experiment on Milovana) otherwise it will take 2h for you to read since they are so many.

I also want to mention it will probably be the last version for a while because there are a lot of changes right now in my daily life and it's very time consuming to manage them (that's also why I close the patreon page because I did not wanted to charge you for nothing). I want to thanks the 10 monthly patreon I had to have supported that project, people commenting on those feedback threads and people that enjoy the game. (also special mention to Errant_ that helps me giving me a lot of feedbacks and suggestion in private messages)

I hope you will enjoy this version. Feel free to post feedbacks here or to send me a private message. Also if you have a question on the game, I will be happy to answer it

Naughty regards,

The Doctor

[ICBMinthehouse]

In the main, it's far, FAR better than the previous version I played: not sure whether it was v 0.1 or v 0.2. The game runs more smoothly, the combat system is not only well explained, but the combat loop is also much more intuitive: it is much easier to tell when you are losing and why you are losing. The day cycle is good, and the weekly events a nice touch. The English is also much improved: there are still a few poorly-constructed sentences or grammatical mistakes, but it's clear what everyone is saying.

A few points I would like changed/improved, however.

Either make the wildlife events less brutal (the wasp nest and the mosquito in particular can ruin your game if you are low on water), or make the player immune to wildlife for the first week.

Add text lines for all characters: Martha doesn't say anything to the player at all, and Ava doesn't speak in her Level 3 images.

Add a catalogue for the pictures of the girls that you only access after beating all three levels of that girl: allows you to feel like you have completed the game a little more.

Make Will more powerful/more usable, and make the girls harder: this would give more scope to strategy within battles. When battling forest girls for example, I have only ever used Heal and Zap/Dodge with certain characters, and most girls make it very hard to use Power because the power-draining is unpredictable.

A manual save / load option would be nice.


Overall though, a massive improvement and at this point a great game already. A little unbalanced I feel (too hard in the early game and past a certain point impossible to lose unless you want to in the late game) but that's to be expected in development. I hope this continues to get developed when you have more time!

ICBMinthehouse

[Selios]

Not played any of the other versions but enjoyed playing this. I died in week 1 because some of the girls are super hard though (that one that hits you for 70hp is insane!).

The thing that I was missing in it is the tease part of the webtease. Like yeah the girls are hot but would be nice to have each attack require you to do some sort of stroking or something, with punishments (ball busting maybe?) for when you fail tasks. I understand if that's not the sort of game you want to make though.

Overall though I enjoyed it.

[Errant_]

Woohoo, glad to see this released! Not sure why the rating isn't higher, perhaps too game-y and not tease-y enough for the majority of people here, or downvote spam...
Anyways, happy to see how far it's come, and I hope you will be able to come back to it eventually :)

[LittleElfBoy]

No matter what enemy I have found the first day, all of them strictly have more HP than me and often deal more damage. Mood is extremely limited and its very RNG to find a beatable fight at all and with how harsh the survival mechanic is, losing fights means death very quickly. I'm not seeing the appeal in this at all because right now this is just a "reset for good RNG" simulator.

[Errant_]

No matter what enemy I have found the first day, all of them strictly have more HP than me and often deal more damage. Mood is extremely limited and its very RNG to find a beatable fight at all and with how harsh the survival mechanic is, losing fights means death very quickly. I'm not seeing the appeal in this at all because right now this is just a "reset for good RNG" simulator.

Having thoroughly tested the balance, I can tell you that every level 1 fight is winnable without further leveling/equipment. Some fights may be harder than others, and it may not be a *guaranteed* win every time, but definitely the majority of the time (and some girls in fact are a guaranteed win if you come in fully healed and use the right strat). And of course, once you've won one or two fights, the level up upgrades should help a lot.

The fights require quite different strategies, so it may take a bit of experimentation to understand what works best for each opponent. If you want hints on specific enemies, I can share those privately.

[CAR3L3SS]

-Wheather event dosent give any warning, that you need 2 water to survive.In quests,but not like in regular water warning.
-That one Asian is unbeatable.Somehow it can do 3 times 70 in a row.
-Seduce is worthless,It pays badly.If you take hits you need to rest more and you lose time from fighting.

[indyc]

As others have said, the level of improvement has been incredible. I'm so glad you stuck with it and I feel like I have a lot more to explore. Thank you so much for bringing in a type of "addiction system" these are a huge draw for me.

I wanted to first mention the power mechanic, it feels like it has the potential to be a wonderful push your luck mechanism. However, it is my impression that nearly all fights cannot be won without it. The feeling of having to rely on a mechanism based off of luck doesn't sit as well with me, especially when I get criticaled 3 times in a row.

The seduce mechanic also seems like a wonderful idea but as it stands it was too difficult for me to ever pull off with a win.

When you go into an area and something like a mosquito or other event happens that many times leads to nothing, I HIGHLY suggest then brining the player immediately into the next event in that area. Even if time was not a mechanic of the game being told nothing happens, try again with the extra clicks does not feel right. Like moving around the hornets nest, I know I lost time but why does it spit me back to the home camp...? A similar suggestion for market actions, if I buy something, you can code it to continue buying things without going back through the market intro text each time.

I feel like much of the rest of the game would be improved by better, non-tutorial explanations. It seems like my health and morale go down the more sick I have but I am entirely guessing. I assume screws are used to fix equipment but that was only after several minutes of wondering what screws are for, why they would be part of a level up, and also wondering why the equipment I achieved is unequipable. On the note of level ups there are better ways to display how many points you have to spend and the cost of current things, send me a message if you want help on those.

It feels like the morale costs for nearly all the skills are a bit too high. It feels wrong to only do one special move per fight at most. I also don't understand why zap exists. Sure it may skip a turn of the opponent but I just depleted my morale and didn't do any damage? I might be misunderstanding it completely but it sure seemed like a waste. It also feels like certain actions should improve morale to have more control over it.

The water mechanic doesn't sit that well with me. Sure, it brings in a bit of realism but when you are low you are hoping to get some based off of random values and that is IF you can even win the fights to begin with. It feels really strange to be combined primarily with fights instead of something else. However, for the time being you already have sickness and other lose conditions, I suppose I don't understand the reason for water existing because it takes the spotlight away from your main mechanisms.

It may sound like I am being negative but if I did not like your game and it's potential, I would not have mentioned these points at all. I am excited for the future of this game and am available to help out however I can. Enjoy your time off.

[imtoosexy]

The TOTM somehow got me to this tease and I wanted to let you know I enjoyed it and it may be undervalued and in need of a new release.

I liked the sickness +1 per picture mechanic best, your tease has great pictures and trying not to get exposure to them is contradictory, which really shines a nice light on the power held by women in this tease.

It made me think twice about ending a fight, especially when the next picture promised to be a good one.

I liked knowing how to finish the trail back to camp and considering if I should visit a girl first, knowing that doing it would mean getting more exposure to the virus.

Or realizing that the double or nothing game was actually only getting me more exposure to the virus.

Or realizing that the assessment after the marathon run was also exposing several pictures and meant catching more of the virus.

I thought I would miss the stroke mechanics, but I didn't at all.

I also like the market fabric mechanics. Although it says random fabric, it would obviously not work out if it was actually random, but I went ahead and tested anyway and had fun.

Overall the mechanics work out great and I can't believe the amount of work this would have been !

Thanks!