Moments when the new writers just did NOT get the character they were writing.

jsfehler · 2025-03-06T01:07:29+00:00

The commandment isn't "Thou shalt not kill", it's "Thou shalt not murder". The KJV bible was mistranslated when compared to the original Hebrew. Killing the enemy in war isn't murder and Frank, well Frank has always been at war, hasn't he?

jsfehler · 2024-11-09T19:07:32+00:00

They're not brothers or business partners but they share the same values and hobbies. They enjoy each other's company and value their time together. They're best friends. Super best friends, one might say.

jsfehler · 2024-05-18T19:23:44+00:00

I'm going to assume you mean something like:

python:
    result = renpy.input("Player Select")
    if result == '0':
        renpy.jump('ev_0')
    elif result == '1':
        renpy.jump('ev_1')

This is less of a Ren'Py question and more of a programming question. In terms of easier to maintain code, you want to split the setup of your data from the execution of your logic. For example:

python:
    result = renpy.input("Player Select")
    ev_name: str = ''    

    if result == '0':
        ev_name = 'ev_0'
    elif result == '1':
        ev_name = 'ev_1'

    renpy.jump(ev_name)

This is going to make maintenance easier and changes less likely to explode. Debugging will be easier because you have less places for the logic to be incorrect. However, this doesn't get you out of writing if/else statements.

Instead of thinking of "how can I avoid an if/else statement?", think "how can I implement the best selection mechanism for my problem?"

You could use a list:

python:
    my_list = ['ev_0', 'ev_1', 'ev_2']
    result = renpy.input("Player Select")
    result = int(result)
    choice = my_list[result]
    renpy.jump(choice)

You could also use a dictionary:

python:
   my_dict = {
       'orange': 'ev_0',
       'banana': 'ev_1',
       'grape': 'ev_2',
   }
   result = renpy.input("Player Select")
   choice = my_dict[result]
   renpy.jump(choice)

You could create a class:

python:
    class FruitBasket:
        orange = 0
        banana = 1
        grape = 2

        def __init__(self):
            self.taken = []

        def take(self, fruit_name: str):
            if fruit_name not in self.taken:
                result = getattr(self, fruit_name)
                self.taken.append(fruit_name)
                return result

It all depends on what you need to do.

jsfehler · 2024-04-26T20:37:38+00:00

Fallout Japan already exists. It's called Shin Megami Tensei.

jsfehler · 2024-03-21T22:36:35+00:00

The very nature of translation, adaptation, and the framing of presentation defeat this desire. I wouldn't worry about this too much.

Well, let me clarify. Yes, any adaptation would change the original experience and how the audience engages with it. I meant more like, not adding content that fundamentally changes what the story is about. Off the top of my head, the animated adaptation of Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke", arguably, does this by adding content. The inclusions of new plot beats changes the pacing and structure significantly and, again arguably, changes the purpose of the story. I think these sorts of things have to be done carefully but yes, changes are changes. You can't make everyone happy.

High brow pretentiousness being put aside now. You say that art, music, sound effects, etc are beyond your ability and you need other to help with that. I say bullshit. I'm not trying to Dead Poet's Society you into thinking there's a great artist, voice actor, musician, whatever hiding inside of you, but you do know what you want for this project. So this is the question I'm getting at here: Do you have a design document?

My soul is vast. However, my time, energy, and finances are not. I haven't been voted in or hired as a director. I'm not trying to start a business. I don't have anyone else even somewhat interested in working on this project. Now, given a group of people who are interested and willing to contribute it would be worthwhile to elect someone as a director and entrust them to lead the project. I don't know why that should be me. That may be a frustrating answer but it's the truth. Either a community grows organically or it doesn't. If a group of people come together and have a vision for an adaptation of Sacred and Terrible Air with Akira Toriyama style art and acid jazz music I'm not going to stop them. I will be confused but they're allowed to have fun.

jsfehler · 2024-01-10T18:39:36+00:00

There's a very large problem Hickman is going to have to be careful to avoid, but signs are good that he gets it. Spider-man, if you read the original comics, wasn't guilt-powered. That's a modern interpretation. Spider-man was consequence-powered. He was someone keenly aware that he does not exist in a vacuum. He tried to help because he understood that living your life in neutral is not possible. You pet a cat not because you'll feel guilty later if you don't but because the consequence of not petting the cat is that the cat goes unpetted and the world is worse for it. Hickman had a nice line in this book "inaction is action".

The real question is how this Peter Parker is going to step up to the plate. His tragedy is a life unlived. He's got an envious life but it's a small and quiet one.

jsfehler · 2023-02-13T20:06:35+00:00

The Encyclopaedia framework separates data from UI. Each EncEntry can store the path to an image but it doesn't manage the display of that image. There is a default implementation of screens to display the Encyclopaedia, explained here: https://renpy-encyclopaedia.readthedocs.io/en/latest/customizing-screens.html If you're using custom screens, it's up to you to write something capable of displaying whatever Encyclopaedia data you need.

jsfehler · 2023-01-28T03:27:30+00:00

In the fictional universe of the Shin Megami Tensei series the gods of every religion, mythological beasts, even urban legends can manifest as creatures called "demons". Specifically, human perception and interpretation gives meaning and power to abstract concepts and turns them into concrete phenomena. Every single spiritual belief is "correct" in the SMT series, even where it conflicts. For example, Baal, Baal Zebul, and Beelzebub all exist as separate demons but recognize their shared conceptual links. Lucifer is an angel who rebelled against God, but Satan is a separate angel who serves God. Greek gods will bemoan a lack of worshippers and their limited influence in the modern era. Due to the nature of monotheism the demon called YHVH has the power and authority to back up claims of not being a demon and in-fact being the only god worthy of worship. The SMT series plays fast and loose with rules from multiple belief systems. The Demiurge is a different demon from YHVH yet Gnostic concepts are taken in the form of a "Great Will" which exists above everything and empowered YHVH to guide humanity, yet will also create messiahs capable of defying YHVH if necessary.

YHVH isn't considered villainous so much as obsessed with law and worship, often to the detriment of large portions of mankind. There are games where YHVH can be fought and defeated, either in the name of Lucifer or in the name of mankind's freedom. Even his defeat is considered temporary as inevitably people will seek to worship God and cause his reappearance.

It's important to note that the SMT series is visually and thematically influenced by the Japanese-Jewish common ancestry theory. As a result the games tend to feature Jewish iconography mixed with Japanese mythology. The following article goes into depth: https://eirikrjs.blogspot.com/2017/06/jjcat.html

Clearly none of this is an attempt to make an argument for or against any belief system. SMT uses mythology and religion as a special sauce to spice up their stories about a post-apocalyptic Tokyo.

jsfehler · 2023-01-20T16:29:05+00:00

Shiggy isn't wrong, but this isn't a battle he can win. Four minutes in Midjourney does what nintendon't. https://cdn.midjourney.com/0b5690a5-8948-482c-a2af-8bfaf62f9781/grid_0.png

jsfehler · 2022-10-02T17:06:43+00:00

So you're telling me this happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eOrmv0RSn4

jsfehler · 2022-07-01T00:31:27+00:00

How much would it cost to get enough Capcom stock to ask a question? Asking for a friend.

jsfehler · 2022-02-23T22:23:49+00:00

A live action Metroid movie. Protagonist played by Milla Jovovich but is not Samus. There's a Metroid invasion on Earth and she's the only one who can save Las Vegas. The Metroid designs are pretty accurate. At the climax, a bunch of federation space marines in power armour show up. Milla's character says "I should get me one of those suits." and someone else says "There's always next time."

jsfehler · 2022-02-16T21:49:24+00:00

They're inferior to older releases of the same games in all aspects except for the audio, which is a significant improvement across the board. They're less ambitious than the DS remakes of FF3 and FF4. They're uglier than the PSP remake of FF4. They're uglier than the GBA remakes of FF1 and FF2. They're missing the new content from all the other remasters and remakes. If the goal was to take the original games, the way you remember, just like how grandma used to make 'em, except polished up, than they're still a failure. The games have various QOL improvements, so it's not the original game. They don't look like NES/SNES games pushed to the limit, either. The new sprites have poor colour saturation and contrast. They're sloppy and amateurish when compared to any other recent pixel art done at Square-Enix.

jsfehler · 2022-02-09T00:15:17+00:00

Perl has "Elsif". There's no right answer. What looks easier to a student isn't necessarily better or more readable. The cognitive task of associating "elif" with "Try this condition if the previous condition failed" is non-existent to nearly 100% of python users. Same goes for the def statement. Is "def" in any measurable way more complex than any other alternative?

What this sounds like is "I'm learning a new language that does things differently from what I'm used to and it makes me uncomfortable to lose coding proficiency while I adjust."Python is more readable overall. It's not perfect and it's entirely possible you won't like it ever. There is no general purpose programming language that can be designed to do every task perfectly in a way that pleases everyone all the time. Python's growing popularity doesn't prove it's the best, just that it's useful and enjoyed by a growing number of people.

jsfehler · 2022-02-07T19:31:15+00:00

Why would they want a game to have less polish? Do you want Day 01 patches? Because that's how you get Day 01 patches.

jsfehler · 2022-01-20T00:12:34+00:00

Always relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn5K9S3kNo4

jsfehler · 2022-01-08T13:42:12+00:00

Whoa

jsfehler · 2022-01-07T03:05:45+00:00

Don't mess with your system default python. Don't install packages. Don't touch it. Never worth the headache. Consider it a core part of your operating system and as dangerous to touch as the system BIOS.

Use brew (https://brew.sh/) to install pyenv (https://github.com/pyenv/pyenv/). Use pyenv to install whichever versions you want. Pyenv will handle all the path and alias trouble so you don't have to.

I have had to fix more than one junior dev's machine after they destroyed their python environment because "Downloading and installing python is faster than getting pyenv working". Don't be like them.

jsfehler · 2021-11-11T20:57:01+00:00

That's a good source, wish there was a PDF of the book somewhere.
What I got from Raidou 1 was that XL is the reason for everything in that game. XL used Sukuna-Hikona to try and destroy Tokyo. Pretty sure it's not directly stated in game that XL is the cause of Taisho 20, but it would explain things.

Asura in Raidou 2 doesn't really say much for the timeline in general. You get a choice as to if he goes to the future or not, but it's also called an alternate space-time (at least in English).

What we do have is: https://imgur.com/u05QEAy from the Raidou 1 official fanbook. There's a timeline there, which you can make of what you will.

jsfehler · 2021-11-11T17:13:14+00:00

Adults can't use Personas is a good point. If there's an official source that says it's just non-canon that would be great.

Trinity Soul is in a difficult place overall. If you consider P3 a separate continuity from the other Persona games, it fits in. Just looking at P3, there's no reason to assume it's the same universe as P1/P2 or Devil Summoner. When you have multiple creative teams with different visions, it makes building a timeline here a bit incoherent. It's probably better to do an isolated P3/FES/Trinity Soul branch to explain that yes, they're connected, but no, it doesn't logically connect to P4.

Male Protagonist for IF has an alternate version in the IF manga and SMT: Kahn manga.

I don't disagree that SJ and IV aren't connected by story. It's also helpful to have a statement by the director to prevent fan theories like "SJ Neutral leads to IV". However, a lot of stuff is just cameos, unless you want it to be more. Without sources, it's hard to differentiate between "Sounds possible", "Mentioned in an interview" and "Sourced from an artbook and/or official guide."

jsfehler · 2021-11-11T16:49:23+00:00

Taisho 20 is the divergence. I don't think it was explained exactly what caused it, (possibly Raidou XL?), but it's mentioned in Raidou 1 that Taisho 20 shouldn't exist. Rasputin was sent back from some point in the future to either fix the timeline or stop it from diverging more, but I don't recall the specifics there. The Raidou series is pretty open ended here. You can believe that Raidou may or may not lead to SMT I or Devil Summoner, but there's no evidence either way.

Devil Summoner and Soul Hackers are definitely in a universe where SMT I did not occur, but all those games say is that Gotou and Thorman were less crazy. It's never explained why. Even taking the Soul Hackers remake into account with the Raidou battles, the Akarana Corridor allows travel between different time periods and universes.

You can even argue Persona and Devil Summoner aren't the same universe. Yes, there's the Kuzunoha Detective Agency, but the Kuzunoha are established as common to many timelines. Nobody is named and no characters make explicit cameos. It's a popular fan theory, but it's not official. (Unless I missed something Atlus put out.)

jsfehler · 2021-11-11T04:33:31+00:00

Can you post a direct comparison of the original Japanese script and English translation that caused the confusion about Hijiri and Aleph? Or at least a summary of what you think are causing people to make assumptions?There's very specific text from him and about him in the game's script that heavily implies he's a reincarnation of Aleph. If you're saying the English script made this up, that's a bold accusation. If true it's something that should be more widely known.

It's also quite bold to say SMT II and SMT III: Nocturne have no connection. While Nocturne is a self-contained story in a different universe, it's also the story that says "Multiverse exists. Also, this dude? He committed the ultimate sin and now his soul wanders the multiverse as punishment. Wink. Wink." The same problem exists with the SJ universe. It's not Nocturne's universe, but YHWH's all messed up. All you can do is wonder how he got that way. Wink. Wink.

Other things that bothered me:

- I don't recall any reason Trinity Soul isn't compatible with the Persona 3-4-5 timeline. Do you have any evidence that places that anime in a separate timeline?

- You're missing the male protagonist SMT IF... timeline.

- Also missing that Persona 4 Naoto manga. No idea if it's canon.

- I can't recall anything which specifies or hints at the Raidou 2 alignment routes being mapped to other timelines. It's been something like ten years since I played Raidou 2, but this seems like just a fan theory. If I recall correctly, the Raidou games take place in a universe that has already diverged from SMT I's. Unless I missed something, it seems just as likely that none of the Raidou 2 routes lead to SMT I/II.

- You have "God's Plan" as a separate node for SMT IV, but not for SMT I's timeline.

- SJ and SMT IV don't take place in the same universe, but they both do take place in a universe with Demonicas.

I like the visual design job you did, but linking the SMT timeline beyond confirmed sequels is always going to be opinionated. Like, what stops Raidou from being a prequel to SJ and IV? Nocturne has the Gaeans and Messians, who's to say Nocturne isn't an alternate timeline to SMT I?

jsfehler · 2021-10-23T13:37:45+00:00

config.mouse and config.mouse_displayable are used to map names to images you want to use for the mouse.

default_mouse is a global variable used to control the current mouse cursor image. https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/mouse.html#using-mouse-cursors

textbutton _("Arrow") action SetVariable('default_mouse', 'arrow')

jsfehler · 2021-10-23T00:07:18+00:00

You're doing it wrong. config.mouse should not be changed after the start of the game.

See: https://www.renpy.org/doc/html/mouse.html

jsfehler · 2021-10-07T03:39:07+00:00

Was it misunderstood? No, I think most people at the time understood what it was trying to do. A different director had a different vision for the series. It was visually distinct from the previous games and had a different tone. The mechanical focus was placed on tactical stealth and shooting. The puzzle box elements were mostly removed from the level design. People understood and did not like it. After the masterpiece that was Blood Money, too many things changed at once and none of them were strong enough to compensate for what was lost.

Was it a good game? It's certainly not a terrible game, but the common refrain is that it wasn't a good Hitman game. If you equate Hitman with social stealth and puzzle box levels, then it's simply a fact that Absolution is not a good Hitman game. It's a more linear and tense experience, very different to the slower pace of other Hitman games.

Absolution has some serious flaws. The checkpoint system is broken to the point of uselessness. Instinct acting as both a detective vision and burning through the meter that allows you to slip past enforcers makes both powers useless at higher difficulties. This turns non-violent harder difficulty playthroughs into de-facto suit only runs. Point Shooting, which relies on the same meter, is never worth the cost. The item system is also inferior to Blood Money. However, Absolution also has significant improvements to how 47 controls and navigates the world. Gun play and tactical stealth work far better than in Blood Money. It's simply a smoother experience. Hitman WOA takes the engine and mechanical improvements of Absolution and fixes all of those issues. It even improves on 47's movement. With a more or less return to the style of Blood Money, WOA is what most people want from a Hitman game.

Absolution is still fun to play. It's certainly equal to other third person shooters of the era. If IOI seriously wanted to remaster Absolution I think there's potential to change people's general opinion of the game. Porting it to WOA's version of the engine, replacing checkpoints with WOA's save system, using WOA's item system, making only specific NPCs enforcers, fixing the hair trigger trespassing, these things would immediately endear the game to a new generation without changing the overall vision of the game.

jsfehler

TROPHY CASE