itch.io

sorry, my health has turned sour (i had a crippling stroke), so this and other games have taken a back seat.

and i am sure the world would stop turning if you did not take time to slam me for my post, too, you utter ****. you are showing me that you feel being this way is sometimes justified--so maybe i was too? hrmm?

don't do same task _ (gather wood, stones, fiber, Craft) immediate;y twice in a row, testing showed this always causes a lock up. do something else in between: gather stone, craft, gather stone, etc.

it has been a long time. plqying again, i died twice in myb sleep, then escaped on day 26...

so take this down, i understand it is alpha, but why leave it up and active here? especially when steam apps cause me major hassles (i have had to reinstall win10 three times due to team issues--obviously i am not fond of being forced to use steam crap). plus, ideas and suggestions should always be considered for games and apps, no?

it seems you are the one with a terrible argument. yoiu are frothing at the mouth in anger with your post. meet mr ignore.

thing slip in to cracks, not just through. wish i had a regular sister.... ionly had a sort-of half sister

i give up. i have tried many time to get a good downloaded zip file, with no success, I also had to find the file and the download log because the downloaded filename gave no clue what it was.. just "x86_64-win32.0.69.2.itch.510,zip" which could have been a virus for all the name suggests...nothing to indicate this was craft-o-mation and not something else. i am really disappointed with the developer now--they took a great concept and working program and turned it in to utter garbage

see my post uploading to the great Internet Archive @ archive.org.

I uploaded to archive,org, so no more mega.nz needed, or need for gofile. archive.org has a huge amount of file space and bandwidth for archives, and is very solid, stable, and completely free (oly yearly donation events to raise money for costs...)

Enjoy!

not that i disagree about the pace, but if you want a porno, go download a porno. this is a visual novel.

given the scope, style, and apparent goals ov the the suthor, i doubt ntr will be added. more likely (and even then, not by much) it is more likely it will add open releationship favoring theb male, not the females.

i finally got the main story anf 4 bonus packs downloaded, and in turn, i am uploading to archive,org, which has no limits/restrctions on size or speed downloads, and none of the problems itch.io and mega.nz had, and it is free and provides torrent downloads. I will update this with the url once i get everything worked out!( Az, i hope in the future, you will upload to archive.org--that's what it is for! a free archive of anything ever published on the internet.) My own future updates may include walkthroughs and other content / game tools, we'll see. (slight delay in uploading as i failed to include the main storyline....)

the repository on archive.org is partially in place, including *.torrent downloads: https://archive.org/details/halfway-house--adult-visual-novel . I am still working on a few things, such as virus scan info and file verification hashes, but the bulk is ready to go. te archive.org *.torrent downloads everything in the repository, to grab only specific files, you will have to browse and choose which files you want.

Enjoy!

Some thought. observation, and bug reports: First, i am on a cheap-o HP laptop... 150 GB (gigabyte) hard drive, 4.0 GB RAM. 1 .0 0GHz Intel processor/CPU, Win 11 Home. not much by today's typical gaming rig. I also have a Debian GNU Linux on my better desktop PC.. which i do not use currently due to a stroke leaving me heavily disabled, but otherwise, the game runs well in Wine (I assume it will run just as well in similar x86 emulation on Mac OSX....

I enjoy the game, but it needs a tutorial--some things are not so obvious until you get used to and into the game; I often have to try the right mouse button, then the left- before I find which/the one I need. There also seem to be memory issues. loading a game and often, at some point, the Train/Teach button simply stops working at all, saving then reloading a game seems to lose some things, presumably due to lazy loading under the (incorrect) assumption, the memory from the previous load is already initialized. loading a "Start a new game," then reloading the just saved game seems to avoid this issue (and why I suspect the assumption that memory may still be previously loaded.

The "Programming" aspect needs a lot of work, including object type detection (is the object being held a log or plank?) and if-then(-else) logic. Subroutines/functions would be nice, especially if this can be loaded and used from a central location; giving a reason to make a specialized..building for it and maybe signal transmission towers. expanding to custom specialized microchips as well. (and challenges: "Your farming chip was infected with a virus that poisons your crops--better make a fix...!)

another annoyance is as lack of undo; many times the mouse would overshoot the desired program line and delete the one above or below the one desired. if this was a large loop block, I'd scream and rip my hair out and I do not have much left!)

gives an error:

TypeError: this.synthedArmors(...).contains is not a function

at Game_System.hasSynthed(YEP_ItemSynthesis.js:727:35)

(any transcription errors in that are mine--copy/paste won't work_)

an auto-save would be nice. nothing like misclicking (i bam dsabled and cannot precision click), only bto lod a new pageand lose the last hour of game play, made worse because the game does not load or run full proper in a browser. good game concept trash into utter crap because of poor developer decisions!

is there a download available?

gsame froze with an error about kongregate not defined. i presume that it was designed to work with kongregate games, not itch games :(

It has been two years since I played this and posted that. I no longer recall how. Most likely, I clicked a button or manually entered the number somewhere (as "1.0e+20" since most JavaScript handles those kind of numbers without problem).

Just FYI... The islands are not determined by land vs water. Each block / cell has a location on the grid, and it's location determines what biome it gets. If you dig an island up, and then recreate it, it will still have the same biome as the original island that was there.

I really advise you do not do it. Not because it is 'cheating', which I do not care if you do or do not -- but because it seriously breaks and bugs the game, making it unplayable. It really duplicates things... and duplicates them some.. and some more.. and some more.. until the end of time, causing your computer to run out of storage, memory, etc. Okay, that is a small exaggeration; You can always close the page / browser to stop it, but then you cannot play the game. So why do it?

Also, my post / comment (above) already said how to do it.

What are the game controls? I can only figure out arrows to move, and nothing else.

Came back to the game to see if the previously reported bug(s) had been fixed (see my comments lower down about a year ago from this writing): The chest bug is detailed, and can be avoided by careful choosing of stacks and chests.

Sadly, there is no response from the developer, nor an update.

The game becomes unresponsive at random times, and random click-ables.. I am able to click certain things, but not others. At one point, I could not return to "Finance", but almost everything else worked.

Also, some kind of save state/progress would be ideal: With the above issue, I tried to reload the game, but had to start over from he beginning of the game. :-(

I do suggest the next "unlockables" be shown along with what is needed to unlock them. (And possibly some which remain "hidden" until

unlocked....)

Agreed that tying anything but display updates to frame rate is a very bad thing. Better to have a stable and reliable "master clock", such as one with a period of 100 milliseconds (small enough that only bad "system lag"/overload would be apparent o human perception). Ideally, that should be he only clock anything is "tied to" -- even the frame rate should be based on the master clock. Likewise, the main game loop, event detection, event processing (keep detection and processing as two separate steps! That way, in a shooting game for example, both entities shoot each other simultaneously, both get detected _first_, then handled after all other detections), and idle hand-off (giving time back to the OS so it can handle other system and user tasks, screen updates, etc.), should all be based on the master clock. In a complex system, you could assign each to a separate thread and/or CPU/core.

As a start, I suggest you search for and read Robert Nystrom's "Game Programming Patterns" (You can buy it in print, of read the free version online).

Several issues:

(1) Does "To be continued" mean "Not yet implemented"?

(2) After the first (or maybe second or third?) "Midnight" with Morticia, she no longer does anything but giving that response to "talk later..."

(3) The game does not seem to recognize when I buy Tricia the emoji pack and receive the picture. Trying to IM her again goes directly to "Buy Emoji" again.

(4) I never could get to another art class with Beth, and now the task is gone from the list.

(5) Minor point: There should be a version for Linux users. The download is too large and fails to finish, so I am not able to try it under Linux Wine or Mono. Maybe (a) split it in to multiple small archives, and/or (b) use 7-zip for higher compression/smaller file(s).

Re (1), perhaps instead of an option, have different commands? "Find and Pick" to get from storage only, "Find and Mine" to get from raw resource piles only, and maybe a "Find and Get" which would get from either? As it is, it reminds me of how "Smart" phones like to "auto-correct" with the wrong correction... But at least with those you can choose to force it to your desired result.

As map size and game complexity grows. it will become less likely to have a single storage box dedicated to each item. Instead, transport lines will evolve: CMs will mine and deposit raw goods in areas where they are found, while other CMs will transport from those collection centers to different production areas where they are needed. (A true "ideal" would be a distribution "on demand", instead of "equally spread out"...)

In reality, a well-designed distribution is the opposite of "one specific storage", but a need to locate one of possibly many storage and staging sites with the desired item -- the lower cost of finding it outweighs the larger cost of walking across the map only to discover the single storage site is empty.

(2) That is not entirely true. A program can use logic to avoid wasted CPU or I/O. If a file is exactly 2 bytes in size, and you have already read 2 bytes, you know trying to read it again will give an EOF. Likewise, a CM knows if it is occupying the space requested, and nothing else is (or can, as the game is currently designed), it can skip trying to take take a step backwards to try to grab the space it just vacated.

A general "Find" feature would be a suitable alternative. But you can still assume that the CM has sensors (i.e., eyes) and can already know the command will fail.

Whoops, seems I found a bug. When copying a program to another CM, the current program execution position does not get reset (I have not checked if run/pause state changes).

Most likely, the program position _should_ reset to idle and enter paused mode for the CM.

Perhaps the resource positions can hold a variable amount of resources? The image used can vary by how much is currently available? (Right now, there are only two types of each, a "5 count" and "1500 count" version.) Possibly add some very high (maybe even infinite?) resource tiles, especially near the edges.

The ice might vary according to how much heat it is near. Adjacent to a heat source might make it melt (maybe within 2 tiles of a heater?) Likewise, some way to make ice from water might be handy. Could be an "ice machine", and/or a "heat shield" type placement.

There are some other issues, however...

(1) "Find and Pick" needs some more/better logic. Ideally, it should be able to include/exclude types, such as "From Box" (storage boxes), "From Raw" (I call those "piles" of raw/not-yet-mined resources), or even both. Perhaps even the ability to pick both but give a preferred type (Pick from Box, if available, raw pile otherwise). This is because I set up a CraftoMate (hereafter referred to as just CM) with a program to "Find and Pick", "Drop to" a box, then "To idle". But the result surprised me: It worked the _first_ time, but the second time it picked from the box it just dropped to (since it was now closest)! I adjusted to program to include a "Move to" first, but later in the game it caused problems when a) I had multiple storage boxes spread out on the map and the raw resources piles eventually became depleted. (Likewise, the "Drop to" might be able to only drop "On Ground" or "to Box".)

(2) Some degree of "look ahead" would be nice. I was trying to clear two adjacent Stone piles, so I had he logic of "Pick From" the first, and if that failed, it would "Pick From" the second. It worked, but every time it would move back to the first position, fail because it already cleared the tile, then move back to the second position. It should see that the first is already clear and go directly to the second, instead of wasting power moving back and forth needlessly.

(3) Related to (2), the "Warning" icon in the upper right that appears next to the pause button should not appear until the CM becomes truly "stuck". Every time it went to the first position and failed, the icon would pop up and then go away as soon as it went on to the second position. Not only does it create a momentary flash that distracted me, it also made it harder to be able to find and focus on the real problem areas/CMs which are stuck.

Some other observations and ideas:

-- I would like some detail/info on how variables work.

-- I kind of miss the old "Low Power" mechanics. I suggest that, instead of making it an "if/then/else" style operation, that you make it more like a sub-program (but not an exception that can occur any time -- only when instructed to check power). That is, create a "Low Power" label lower down like was done previously, and when the "Check Power" item executes, it will either continue to the next instruction, or "Jump" to the "Low Power" sub-program. This way, upon fixing the low power condition, we can choose to "Resume Next" which will go back to the "Low Power" check and continue on, or we could "Resume Idle" similar to the "To idle" instruction.

-- Make certain items not "eat-able". While experimenting, a flawed program made one of my CMs "eat" a seed. Oops. Also, some way of checking/testing _what_ if being held would be nice, to prevent accidentally eating the wrong item (especially when holding two items).

-- Related to the above, the ability of a grown tree to (sometimes?) "drop" a seed as well as wood would be nice.

-- Add an instruction to "Feed"  another CM (as well as one to find one needing power). This way, we could assign one CM to "Stand By" the Battery Storage box, and when another CM needs power, the assigned one can grab a Battery and go feed it to the one needing power. (This could also be combined with my "Low power" suggestion to maybe add a "Call For Help" instruction, which would pause the bot until help arrives... or the player corrects the situation.)

-- Add the ability to pick up and move the "Current Execution" icon to any instruction in the current program screen.

-- A CM instruction to "Wait", which would make it wait (do nothing, such as "10 seconds", or until an even occurs, such as the "Feed" idea).

-- A "Give to" instruction, which could give to another CM. (Useful for things like "Feed"?)

Of course, I still hope to see:

-- Program labels, which could be targets of a "GoTo" instruction.

-- Sub-programs, which could be done with "Call" and "Return" instructions.

-- Real "if (condition) / then / else" logic. (Especially useful with sub-programs.)

-- Looping constructs. (Command Center wants 10 Steel Plates? Set up a CM to deliver exactly 10 then stop.)

After being away for awhile, I got in to a discussion with someone on another game, and this game was mentioned. So I reloaded it to see what, if anything, the developers have done since I last played. I was very happily surprised to see they have done a lot of work on the game, ranging from general tweaks and improvements to adjusting and correcting previously reported issues, to adding user suggested features. Kudos to the developer, and two thumbs up (more if I had more thumbs!)

I tried to jump using the space bar. However, it gave no indication of a jump, nor did it succeed in moving over the fence. What I found does work, but only sometimes, if by "looking" up at the sky, it will sometimes "climb" over the fence.

Likewise, I had to look at an upward angle to "lift" the selected item high enough to place it on/in a workshop (anvil, sawmill, smelter, cauldron).

To get a potion, I had take a step or two back and then look lower to "dip" the vial in it, which is difficult to aim because I have to halfway look at he sky to lift the item high enough to place it in the cauldron, and then _hope_ I aimed well enough to go in.

The sawmill took awhile to figure that the "0.2 <= (number) <= 0.7" meant the sawmill will only cut logs with those min/max sizes. It is also very difficult to cut the logs within those size limits due to the design of the UI. Perhaps some tick marks could be added to indicate about were to cut.

The anvil also took awhile to figure out: I needed _all_ the parts on the anvil, then hit the anvil once to combine and craft them. At the very least, give an indication that more resources are needed (it does not need to say which, only that something is missing).

The smelter was the first and easiest to figure out: I was going to try clicking on it while holding a "gem" (how a gem becomes an iron ingot is beyond me), but as soon as I was close enough to click, it also happened to be the input region and automatically took the gem and produced an ingot.

Another issue is with drinking potions: I have to click and hold the right mouse button for several seconds until it finally "drinks".

My suggestion would be that when "holding" an item, it appears the same way and place a tool would appear when equipped. Then, use/place/drop the item by clicking while the targeting dot indicates what/where to use/place/drop it. Simply clicking on the basket (box) could put the item inside it. Clicking the anvil could add the item on top. Clicking the sawmill/smelter/cauldron could do the logical thing while holding the correct item.

--

One final note: While writing this, I closed and restarted the game to get those "0.2" and "0.7" numbers. This time, the space key worked to jump and I did not have to look as high in to the sky to 'lift" an item off the ground. But I did find another issue: When I grabbed a cut down tree, the game suddenly made the tree disappear entirely and made me "run" backwards at "Warp Factor 10" -- so fast it sent me off the edge to drown and die in the water before I could react.

I cannot figure out the game. I can pick up the tools, but using them on anything seems to have no effect. I can push the mushroom around, but cannot pick it up to drop it in the cauldron. I cannot find a way out of the fence.

For me, at least, the main purpose of pausing the videos is so I could read the subtitles/text, maybe take notes, and give me a moment to "digest" the content. It had not even crossed my mind to try switching to the main game and back -- I never left the video screen. Perhaps you can do both pause and fast forward for now? Just alert the user that if they leave he video while paused, it will reset.

I am wondering now if you can auto-FF to a specific point in the video (and of course, obtain the current position), which you could save in  global. That would make it possible to pause, go to main game, come back, and jump back to the saved position. It would also make it possible in a future release to create multiple "bookmarks" players could jump to while learning how to do things. All this, of course, depends on the capabilities of the video library you are using. (I have no experience with A/V playback libraries--my A/V disabilities are too limiting to bother learning.)

Regarding power switches, perhaps do both? Allow direct manual control, but also allow circuit control. Just like in MineCraft, you can manually open most doors, as well as wire RedStone circuits to control their state. Much if this has to do with my original hopes on what this game was, which I will explain...

Originally, I was looking and hoping for a game similar to MineCraft in some ways, yet different in others. Other influences include Colobot and Widelands, and the Itch.io games Autonauts, BaseCraft, Craftomation 101, Mindustry, Villager, and others. The basic idea is that you start with very little and have to build up your abilities: Manual mining the first resources in which to build more machines to mine/produce more advanced machines. Automation is something of a goal: As you build more advanced machines, some of them are useful to create automated lines and circuitry to control automation. Thus, the progression/goal starts with manual resource gather and basic crafting, to build up to a point it becomes automated and self-sustaining.

The rocket can arrive at regular intervals and start by needing basic items (i.e. "1000x copper")... Harder "modes" could add limits, such as "1000x copper, within 10 days. 3 failures to delivery in time == game over". The "needs" get more advanced as you complete them: Complete "1000x copper", and next time they want "1000x copper and 500x copper plates", and so on. This becomes the "push" for the player to build up more advanced machines and production lines, eventually automating them as well.

This also means that full automation becomes a goal, rather than something the player can/will do from the start. It also becomes a reason and incentive to build a"rocket landing pad", and "rewards" for completed goals: "Build a rocket pad, deliver 1000x copper, and get rewarded with an extra extractor, conduit, and solar panel, delivered by the next rocket".

Of course, keep the current game as a "sandbox" mode where the player can experiment and try things.

I.M.O., these kind of things are what would make the game fun and profitable, for both players and yourself. You could add Patreon support and eventually a premium Steam version. Even if you never intend the game to become a "for pofit" game, you can keep the price low enough just to cover your development costs and time. You can start thinking of future plans; Additional machines, "quests"/goals, scenarios, maybe even one day allowing user made mods and scenarios (take a look at Battle for Wesnoth's history and development).

Also, originally, I was attaching solar panels directly to machines. However, just as often, the power connections would connect them to _other_ machines instead of the one it was attached to. The adjustable ranges might help resolve that problem by limiting range to machines directly adjacent.

A logic block switch may be a bit overkill, since this is not MineCraft. I suggest adding the on/off switch directly to all machines (even transporting machines, power machines/solar cells, etc). However, if making and using a switch logic block wold be easier to implement, it would be an acceptable option.

A pause for the tutorial videos would be useful, as would an overall game pause (maybe automatic pause while in menus). Maybe transcribe the videos, either in-game or on the web somewhere, possibly with screenshots as needed. (I would help with that where I can, but I have no sound... I can only provide the text overlays from the videos.)

Routing does not seem to be something hard to add: You only need to select the machine and tell it where to send the output. Inputs can be be assumed directly by other machines targeting it from their output. (Might consider limited or multiple inputs for this...)

I do like the idea of platforms. Maybe even require them. I.E., build a platform, which will provide a level place to build a machine upon. The top of the platform can be adjusted (probably specific amounts, such as 1/10th (or 1/8th, to simplify the "powers of 2" math) "cell" increments, and the bottom extends automatically until it intercepts the ground. (Likely requiring extra resources if the platform is more than one "cell" above the ground.) This could also work well with loading the rocket for deliveries; Require a "landing pad" and possibly a "loading dock" before items can be loaded and sent up. Manual loading will not require a loading dock, obviously.

1) I tried that, at first. But still two problems: One, a lack of space between machines to visually see how hey become connected (or fail to connect), and Two, landscape is not flat and eventually I can no longer place blocks in a straight line. I had limited success by occasionally moving up one block. Perhaps make a new block that is simply a spacer/aligner (and 'free')?

2) I played with some of that, as well. It works well enough for fully automatic lines. But lack of an ability to manually shut a machine off for other purposes is still a problem. And makes little sense. Imagine a light in your house that once placed will turn on at dusk and cannot be turned off until dawn. You have to remove it to stop it. Eventually, you will get frustrated doing that and just go buy a light with an on/off switch from some other company. (In truth, is is the main reason I stopped even trying this game. too frustrating, for no reason.)

3) That is indeeed helpful. Trying now to just figure out which video is which.

Several issues will need to addressed to make this a good game.

1. Give text transcripts of the help/tutorials -- Not everyone can enjoy the wonders of audio/visual. Whether this is due to system hardware, or disabilities. I am both audio and visually impaired, so never set up my system for audio. And the videos roll by so fast I cannot follow them by looking along. And there is no pause for the videos.. A text can be read at my own pace, and I can use a screen magnifier to read it.

2. The game has no pause and never pauses, not even in the menus. For a game such as this which can span hours or days, some kind of pause/resume feature is essential.

3. The controls lack real control. It is very difficult to place blocks where I want them.I constantly have to use the Y, V, and R keys to place things. And much of the time, it sill misplaces and I have to remove and place it again. Some kind of "align to grid" option would be nice, allowing me to place entire production lines down in a straight line horizontally and vertically (not a major issue, but for "neat freaks" like me....).

4. User has very little control over how blocks "connect", For example: I place an extractor, a conduit, a smelter, another conduit, and storage. Then I place solar panels to power things. Depending on what other blocks are nearby, and which order hey were placed, the items and power routes may not work out as desired. This gets worse as I 'F' to remove and move things, since the routes try to re-route again and end up at times sending things in undesired directions. I am sure there is some logic (such as first block in memory/linked list?), but I may as well flip a coin as the memory is allocated/de-allocated/moved around.

Ideally, routing should be under user control. Add an ability to (re-)assign inputs and outputs. This would also eliminate the need to adjust how far conduits transfer items/power; The only requirement is that they need to be within the maximum range when (re-)assigning them (and/or the need to "reboot" them, which still gives no real control over the automatic assigning).

6. The ability to turn machines/blocks on and off would be useful. I could stop an extractor and production line, remove/replace the production line it is feeding, and start it again -- without having "junk" items from the previous line continue to fill storages, or need to remove solar cells to make it stop.