Ariane Through the 10’s

December 1, 2019December 3, 2019 / arianeb / 1 Comment

There is a meme going around where people are comparing themselves in 2009 and today in 2019. I made the above graphic to fit in. The picture on the left came from Date Ariane 6.1 that was released in December 2009. The picture on the right is from Ariane in Paradise released this year. I thought I’d post some of the in between pictures.

2010: Version 6.4 brought some new Rebecca images into the game.

2011: DA 7.0 Replaced the video game screenshot downtown with an original 3D downtown model.

2012: First started working on the sequel Something’s In The Air. I was still using the old Ariane model, but I created Rachel that year.

2013: Finalized Ariane’s Something in the Air model, giving her a new haircut.

2014: Did the remake of Date Ariane for Renpy with yet another new hair style.

2015: Finished Date Ariane Renpy by replacing the ponytail wet hair with more realistic wet hair.

2016: Began the Rachel Meets Ariane story.

2017: Finished the Rachel Meets Ariane story, Rachel and Ariane both get new hairstyles.

2018: Ariane gets yet another new look as I start work on Ariane in Paradise.

2019: Finished Ariane in Paradise.

2020?: I’m experimenting with a new model of Ariane based on La Femme instead of Victoria 4.

Something’s In The Air: 4th Edition

October 16, 2019October 16, 2019 / arianeb / Leave a comment

I redesigned Something’s In The Air once again to bring it in line with the Date Ariane HD version as well as Rachel Meets Ariane and Ariane in Paradise. All four games now use similar GUI, fonts and 1080p resolution. The changes are as follows:

High Definition. The “third edition” is 720p, the “Fourth” is 1080p. The vast majority of the images were simply enlarged to the new resolution and were not actually re-rendered. It would take months to re-render and in most cases the difference would not be noticeable.

Different way to select “last date”. Since the first release, you could go into preferences and select what happened on the last date with Ariane, or you could select that you went on multiple dates. I took that out of preferences, and put it into the game itself using the system I created for Rachel Meets Ariane. When you get to a spot where the story varies based on the last date, it will pause and ask you. The game feels more interactive this way.

It is now possible to reach all 25 endings without digging into settings. The SITA Walkthrough page in the Wiki has now been changed with these options in mind.

Common GUI. I’m using a modified default Renpy 7.0 interface, similar to what I am using in the latest version of the other 3 games. Choices will appear in the middle of the screen, with the question being asked below it. It is a little counter intuitive at first, but it is easy to figure out after a while.

The upshot is that this is the same pattern I am using in all four games so you can go from game to game and they all look similar.

Reduced music. In the original game I way overdid the music cues, and in the “third edition” I gave you a way to turn most of it off. Now I have just removed most of it entirely. The music that syncs with dance routines, video games, and flashbacks are still there, but the distracting story soundtrack has been removed.

Some graphics changes. When I did the graphics update for Date Ariane, I changed some of the models, specifically Rebecca, the convenience store and Ariane’s SUV. I made new renders of any picture involving those models.

This means that two endings (Ariane and Rebecca and Safety Pullout) have mostly new renders. I also redid all 24 pictures of Rachel’s Photoshoot as well as most of the png sprites in the game.

Some of the more prominent images of Ariane and Rachel were redone as well. Specifically the Drive-N-Dine pictures on the Ariane path and the downtown pictures on the Rachel path were redone. 162 images have been redone for the 4th edition.

Download the new edition from the Something’s In The Air Downloads page. For now, this version is not available for Android or in any language but English.

Could a Female Player Character work in DA and SITA?

September 1, 2019September 2, 2019 / arianeb / 8 Comments

It seems that every time I make a new game with new innovations, I want to go back and change my older games to add those same innovations.

One of the new innovations in Ariane in Paradise is that you can play as a male or a female. In fact you can switch genders mid stream, though this may cause odd things to happen, but it is doable.

There have been requests to do the same to Date Ariane and Something’s In The Air, and what this post is about is to discuss the feasibility of this.

Canon: Player Character is Male

Ironically, the one game that will not work with a female player character is Rachel Meets Ariane. It is central to the plot that “Ariane is mostly heterosexual” and dates a lot of men.

It is ironic, because the player character from the previous games is barely mentioned. Ariane in Paradise has a small number of scenes that echo back to Rachel Meets Ariane, and again “Ariane is mostly heterosexual” comes up.

So from the story arc perspective the player character has to be male. But that does not rule out parallel universe versions of Date Ariane and Something’s In The Air where the player character is instead female.

Date Ariane needs a lot of new pictures

Date Ariane might be the simplest of the two to do a female PC version, in fact I considered it before when it was still a web game and even created some pictures. Ultimately the “spaghetti code” of that version made it impossible, but it would be a lot easier in the Renpy version.

There are around 50 or so pictures in the game that show the players hands, arms, or “other parts” that would have to be redone with a female player model. Alternate versions of a few scenes like the vista photo shoot scene and the strip club scenes would have to be added. I could also have some fun rewriting the dress store and lingerie store scenes with a female player character shopping for herself as well.

But for the most part, Date Ariane could work with a female player character.

Something’s In The Air is a bit harder

Something’s In The Air has no pictures with player character body parts except the gymnasium workout scene, so in theory it could be easier. The problem is in the story.

First problem, is that it would imply not just Ariane, but also Rachel, Paula, Bonnie, and Veronica as gay or bi. Ariane is already canonically a hetero leaning bi, and Rachel is canonically a biromantic asexual. The sex crazed Bonnie and leather wearing Veronica are easy to reimagine as bisexual.

Paula might be problematic. Switching her sexuality would change her relationship with Rachel and might imply some impropriety. Would I also have to change the gender of the player character’s video game avatar? Millions of MMORPG players play opposite gender characters, and the revelation that “Ranger Dude” is actually a chick could be potentially funny, but it feels like a PC gender swap would need an avatar swap, too.

Second, “Dave” becomes your platonic male friend and changes that whole dynamic. Almost every “Dave” scene would have to be rewritten, and gender swapping “Dave” would not work either.

The only story that could be left “as is” is the Wendy story as it does not involve romance or sex on the player character’s part, so her sexual alignment does not matter.

Without a lot of picture changes, and the amount of dialog changes needed, I’m not entirely sure it is worth it to change the gender of the PC in SITA, especially when the gender has to be male for Rachel Meets Ariane to work.

The PC Avatar

Part of what this is about is adding a player avatar to the games that pops up whenever it is your turn to speak. Again, I added this almost from the beginning with Ariane in Paradise, and it works great. The avatar reflects three moods: serious, happy, and curious when asking a question. It also changes clothes with the story, and of course there is a male version and a female version.

Adding this to Date Ariane and Something’s In The Air would be easier because there aren’t a lot of clothing changes. Date Ariane would have two: shirt on, shirt off. SITA would have a few: shirtless, formal suit (story 1), No jacket or tie (story 1), gym clothes (story 2), nice shirt (story 2), casual shirt (stories 3 and 4). Adding female variants would be easy, but I’d have to make the story and picture changes listed above.

Since the player’s face never appears in either game, I could also add a variety of player faces to choose from. Unfortunately, what would fall under “too hard” would be to make racial variants with darker skin. It could be done in SITA, but with 50 or so pictures needed in Date Ariane, doing both light and dark skin variants of both males and females, we are looking at 150 additional pictures at least. That’s too much. And since the player character is supposed to be the same in both games, the avatar choices should be the same in both as well.

Should I do it?

There are no promises either way, and definitely no time table on this. It is something I am just thinking about, and thought I’d open up a discussion.

It might be fun, but at the same time I have pointed out every reason why it is not necessary and probably not worth it.

Then there is a easier middle ground I’m considering: Do a female PC variation for Date Ariane, but leave Something’s in the Air as male PC only. That way I avoid all the rewriting problems. Unfortunately, it might lead to complaints: “How come I can use a female avatar in DA but not SITA?”

My other consideration is a potential game 5, which would bring back the player character from the first two games. Right now I’m imagining a male PC, but since it hasn’t even been written yet, I could change to make it work whatever I decide.

My Next Game: Ariane in Paradise

July 22, 2018July 23, 2018 / arianeb / 27 Comments

I have been hesitant to post anything about this, because I have a bad habit of starting something and then bailing on it half way through, but I am far enough along on this project to tell you about it.

If you follow me on Facebook and Tumblr, you may have noticed that my latest Ariane pictures look similar and she is dressed the same. That’s because I am making a new game. Currently titled “Ariane in Paradise”.

After experimenting with the genre with Something In The Air and Rachel and Ariane, I wanted to go back and do a second game like Date Ariane that is a little more chaotic and spontaneous. My original thought was create a new character, but I like Ariane too much so I decided I just need a new setting.

I thought about a tropical island game since I made the epilogue of Something In The Air, but wasn’t sure how to go about it. Then I saw VDateGames has already done a couple of them, Zoe is free to play if you want to get the idea of where I am going with this.

It also helps that over the years I have collected a bunch of tropical themed 3D sets that I have barely even used.

The basic premise is this: Ariane follows Rachel to a fictional tropical island, where for Rachel it is a work trip: she is doing photo shoots for the entire week. This leaves Ariane all alone during the daytime hours to find some fun things to do. You are on vacation alone on the same island where you meet Ariane at the hotel pool.

I don’t want to get into details, because they are likely to change, but I wanted to throw that premise out there to tie all the stories together. You are not playing the same character as Date Ariane and SITA, in fact you can choose to be female if you want, that means you have to meet Ariane all over again.

Also, Ariane only has free time during the day, which means that unlike Date Ariane and SITA, both of which primarily take place at night, this game will primarily take place under sun and mostly blue skies.

I made it a fictional place, because making it a real place could offend people that live there. A fictional place allows me to, for example, create relaxed nudity laws. It also helps that my collection of exotic island sets include Mediterranean, Caribbean, and Polynesian looking props, so a generic tropical island in an unnamed ocean keeps the anachronisms down.

I have no time table of when it will be done. SITA and Rachel and Ariane both took around two years. I’m doing this for my own enjoyment, and I hate deadlines, so it will be ready when its ready.

Upcoming Game Projects!

April 28, 2017December 15, 2017 / arianeb / 15 Comments

Sorry I haven’t posted much this past month, I figured it was enough to move my site to a new page, then I spent the rest of April very busy in real life.

Everyone keeps asking when the next game is coming out, and the truth is I don’t know. Here are a list of projects I am hopefully going to finish some day.

Project 1: Rachel Meets Ariane The Game

The story of Rachel Meets Ariane has already been written and shared here, however the game will add some variations and display it in a high definition presentation that is a little more aesthetically pleasing. It is “mostly done” except I am working on variations of choices in part 4 that result in variations of endings. Biggest obstacle right now is that I have yet to finish writing the alternate endings, then I still need to illustrate them.

Project 2: Date Ariane HD

Basically this involves re-rendering all the images in Date Ariane to size 1500×900 and also correcting lighting and other aesthetic issues along with very low compression. The result should be the best looking version of the game ever, but probably twice as big for download purposes. This will be for PC, Mac, and Linux only as it will be too big for android devices. Status: I’m about half way done.

I was sent a new German translation that works with the latest English version, I will probably release this very soon for German speakers. It also has a feature to switch between German and English. I guess this means Pandorya will have to do a bunch more videos. I hope to move the German translation to Date Ariane HD as well when it’s ready. Status: I just need to get around to it.

Project 3: Unnamed Ariane Reunion Project

Inspired by Chaotic‘s choice to allow players to pick their gender, I thought I’d create a 4th Ariane game where players can choose to play as the male player character from Date Ariane and SITA, back from a lengthy business trip and anxious to reunite with Ariane, or play as Rachel, back from a lengthy business trip and anxious to reunite with Ariane. So far, all I got is a concept that might involve some sort of adventure with the gaming guild that both Rachel and the Player are involved with.

Project 4: SITA HD

Like Date Ariane HD, this involves re-rendering about a thousand pictures in 1080 resolution so it looks a lot better, but also in the Rachel Meets Ariane game I am introducing a new choice system that eliminates the need for picking “prequel” choices, and I want to implement this into Something’s In The Air as well.

Date Ariane The Game: One Year Later

July 23, 2016July 23, 2016 / arianeb / 30 Comments

mosmile8

This weekend marks the first anniversary of the release of the Renpy version of Date Ariane: The Game.

Since its release, it has been downloaded 2.7 million times, which is pretty darn good for an independently produced game. There may be some overlap as multiple versions were released, and people were updating, but in the same time frame I have had over 2 million unique visitors to the web site.

Some numbers: 55% were windows downloads, 38% were android downloads, 6% were Apple Mac, and 1% were Linux.

61% of the downloads were in English, 28% were in Portuguese, 8% in German, 3% in French, and 0.6% in Spanish.

Pretty impressive considering the foreign language versions have only been around since late March. The game has gone viral in Brazil, with 750,000 downloads from there in the last 4 months.

Date Ariane has a gaming channel on You Tube with over 100 videos listed. (almost all the most recent are in Portuguese). A general gaming search produces 473 videos currently.

I’m currently in the process of uploading new versions of the games that include over 100 new renders like the one above. Notice how the window reflects the interior now, which happens when it is dark outside. All the new renders are in the living room and the drive-in diner.

English version build 112 has a number of fixes and tweaks to game play covered in detail here.

I can’t change the international versions much without killing the translation mechanism, so the minor tweaks I made to the English version are not in the International versions. However, the improved pictures are there, and also a new TITLE SCREEN! Once released the French, German, and Portuguese versions will no longer say they are in beta. More build notes and bug fixes here. All versions should be updated by the end of the month.

Something’s In The Air has now passed 500,000 downloads. There seems to be a lot of call for a Portuguese version, but it would need 6 to 10 translators to do it right. I could release a machine translation that I know everyone would hate.

Got some ambitious plans for the future, including a 6 episode season of stories involving Ariane and Rachel where this is the first episode. I’m also thinking about new games involving SITA girls Paula, Wendy, and Janice. (You are probably trying to remember who Janice was, aren’t you?)

I’m also considering an HD versions of Date Ariane and SITA that I could make available for sale on Steam or something, that would be made from high resolution PNG files like this one or this one.

I think I got my work cut out for me.

Ariane and Rachel at Star Wars II: The Espresso Strikes Back

December 19, 2015December 15, 2017 / arianeb / 3 Comments

A continuation of this story.
Note: this is basically a review of Star Wars the Force Awakens in story form, I avoid most of the major spoilers but if you want to avoid all spoilers, you probably want to wait and read this later.

So we all left the movie with smiles on our faces, eager to talk about the film we just saw. Rachel pointed her toy blaster at the coffee stand next door.

Rachel started, “So I can tell by our smiling faces that you all enjoyed the movie as much as I did.”

“I just have to ask,” interrupted Paula, “When did you get your hair done, Ariane?”

“Rachel did it in the theater while we were waiting for the movie to start,” I explained. “She said I needed a more Star Wars hairdo.”

“I wanted to do it with three pony tails like Rey in the movie, but I only had two hair ties,” explained Rachel.

“Cute,” said Paula. “With that out of the way, am I the only one who felt like I was rewatching the original Star Wars?”

I agreed, “Yeah, it felt like a remake with the serial numbers filed off. There are so many obvious parallels, a new Darth Vader, a new Grand Moff Tarken, a new Obi Wan, a new Death Star, a new Emperor and a new Yoda. They all just have different names, except Chewbacca. Props for gender swapping Luke and Leia.”

Rachel looked puzzled, “I get your analogy, you are saying Rey is basically this movie’s Luke Skywalker, complete with light colored clothes and a desert planet home, but who was Leia?”

I said “Finn” and Paula said “Poe” at practically the same time.

“I think you are both right.” said Rachel. “While the plot is note for note nearly identical to the first movie, it is not a perfect remake. Finn has more in common with C3PO from A New Hope than Leia. I’m not sure there is a Leia.”

“Noted,” I said, “Still the lack of originality in the plot is my biggest complaint.”

“Not mine,” said Paula, “I know this is science fiction, and I know George Lucas has an explanation why 12 parsecs is used as a measure of time and not distance, but sometimes the liberties they take are just way too silly.

“You would think that after the first two death stars were so easily destroyed that the bad guys would have learned their lesson, bigger is definitely not better. Now they turn a planet into a space station?

“How does this ‘Star Killer’ move around the galaxy and still have an atmosphere? The fact that they are creating artificial sunspots and sucking a sun’s plasma away would in and of itself destroy the atmosphere of the converted planet, but also the electromagnetic discharge of these artificial sunspots would fry all the electronics in the entire station.”

“Umm, good points,” said Rachel cautiously. “Excellent observations Professor as usual.”

Rachel continued, “My biggest complaint is what was missing. Disney wiped out the Timeline of Legends also known as the Expanded Universe so they didn’t have to worry about continuity with the books and comics that continued the story after Return of the Jedi.

“Instead they dropped clues to a completely different timeline that is just as interesting. Luke disappeared? Han and Leia had a son? Where did this First Order come from and how did it get so powerful? I want these stories dammit!”

I had to laugh. “It seems we all have our own little biases that change how we see the world,” I said. “I like new and different, and complain when I see sameness. Paula is the scientist who views the world scientifically, and Rachel is the sci-fi geek who likes great stories.”

My statement created a lull in the conversation, Rachel and Paula both quietly took sips of their coffee and I joined them.

“Still…,” said Paula finally breaking the silence, “Good movie.”

“Yes,” Rachel and I said simultaneously before getting back to our coffee.

Ariane and Rachel Go See Star Wars

November 30, 2015December 15, 2017 / arianeb / 6 Comments

I was on my way to the local premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens when I was accosted by a stormtrooper.

“Halt right there, let me see your pass!” the stormtrooper said, though I could tell it was Rachel under there.

“Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?” I asked.

“Ha, good one!” Rachael said as she was taking off her helmet.

“Thanks, you look ready to see this. Are you excited?” I asked.

“Of course.” she said, “By the way where is your costume?”

“This is my costume,” I said, “Can’t you tell, I’m Jessica Jones.”

“Ah, of course. I just have a couple of problems with that.” she said.

“First, I recall you wore the same outfit the last time I saw you, and second, Jessica Jones is part of the Marvel universe, and we are here to see Star Wars so you are supposed to dress like someone in the Star Wars universe.”

I of course knew this would come up. Rachel is a sci-fi geek and tends to go all out. I decided to have a little fun.

“I can’t help it if Jessica Jones happens to dress like me, besides isn’t the Marvel universe and the Star Wars universe the same thing?”

Rachel gave me an odd look, so I continued:

“I mean Star Wars and Marvel are now owned by Disney, and if all the Marvel comics are set in the same universe, and Marvel published a bunch of Star Wars comics in the ’80s, then they have to be the same.” I did my Google searching before I arrived.

“Nice try,” said Rachel. I knew some geekiness was about to come. “The Marvel Star Wars comics did not contain any references to other Marvel characters, and even if they did, they are not canon, and even if they were canon, they would be part of the old ‘expanded universe’ which are now called ‘The Timeline of Legends’ which Disney decided to drop for the new movies. Also since 1991, Star Wars comic books have been published by Dark Horse Comics.”

“Sorry,” I said, “I didn’t understand most of that.”

“That’s OK,” replied Rachel with a sigh, “Someone who is better at explaining stuff is on her way here now.”

I turned around and a red-headed woman dressed similar to “Rey” from the trailers with a BB8 droid rolling beside her.

Rachel made the introductions “Hello Professor, I’d like you to meet Ariane Barnes, the friend I was bringing.”

“Nice to meet you Ariane,” said the professor, “Just call me Paula. As you can guess I teach at the college, and Rachel has taken a couple of classes from me.”

“Well nice to meet you too,” I said, “Nice droid.”

“Thanks,” said Paula, “When I heard that they made a droid like this for real for the movie, I figured out how it works and built one for myself in the college robotics lab. It’s not perfect but it’s a work in progress.”

“Uh, Paula,” said Rachel hesitantly, obviously she prefers to call her Professor, “We were just discussing if there were any connections between the Marvel universe and the Star Wars universe, what do you think?”

“Sure, that’s easy,” said Paula who grabbed a smart phone from a hidden pocket and tapped away for a good minute or so at an impressive speed. Even more impressive is what happened next.

Paula’s BB8 droid turned around and displayed a holographic projection into the street, then Paula started to explain, “As stated in the introduction of every film, Star Wars is set ‘in a galaxy far, far away’ while the outer space adventures in Marvel are primarily set in our own Milky Way galaxy mostly on Earth but also other planets in the galaxy in the case of Guardians of the Galaxy, or even parallel realms like Asgard in the case of Thor. So Star Wars and Marvel could be in the same universe, but on different galaxies which explains the lack of crossover. Any questions?”

“Yeah I have one,” said Rachel, “How the hell did you just do that?”

“Just some new tech we’ve been working on, I decided to add it to my droid here, even though it still does not work in daylight or under bright lights,” explained Paula.

“What generated this question in the first place?” she asked.

“Oh I didn’t have a Star Wars costume to wear so I just dressed like normal and told Rachel here I was dressed like Jessica Jones. She as expected, geeked out on me with trivia,” I explained.

Paula laughed, “Rachel actually knows more about this stuff than I do, I’m not even sure who Jessica Jones is.”

“A TV show on Netflix that came out last month, based on a Marvel character, it’s really good if you get a chance to check it out,” explained Rachel as she put back on her stormtrooper helmet. I agreed it was good.

“Oh, maybe I will,” said Paula, “I don’t watch much TV, my spare time has been spent working on BB here.”

“Well good job on BB8, I’m thoroughly impressed with him,” I said.

Rachel agreed, then said, “I think it is time we go in and find our seats.”

stormtrooper and BB8 TM Lucasfilms Ltd.
Female stormtrooper and BB8 by rduda
Jessica Jones TM Marvel Inc.
App enabled BB8 droids are available from Apple

Something’s In The Air now works in Android

September 20, 2015 / arianeb / 33 Comments

It has been a long time coming, but Something’s In The Air is now available for Android. You can download it at https://arianeb.com/sita/download.htm

The early version of Renpy that Something’s In The Air was written in was not Android compatible, and when I tried to upgrade to the latest, it broke a lot of the game puzzles. After a couple of weeks of figuring out how to fix the puzzles and doing a full play test, I decided to upload it to my site, only to find out no one was able to get it to work.

I finally got a hold of an android tablet and confirmed that there was an issue. In my attempt to fix it I made a special Android only version of the game with smaller pictures and removing the player name feature (input prompts are a known bug in Renpy android). Neither of those were the issue as it turns out, and I finally found that the issue was a misplaced file. Still I am keeping the smaller pictures and no player name feature out of the Android version. I play tested all the potentially problematic puzzles and they seem to work.

It takes a while to load, and some of the animations stutter a bit, but it works.

The Other Updates

The PC, Mac, and Linux versions have been upgraded, taking advantage of the new Renpy features, as well as sharing the same “theme” as the recent Date Ariane version.

I am calling the newest version the “third edition” like a normal novel would. There have only been minor changes to the text and story, predominantly where it comes to events of the “last date with Ariane”. I dropped the ability to import dates, it was not that popular anyways, and instead created 33 “last dates” that cover most of the major events from “Date Ariane”, I left a few events out and left out details to prevent “spoilers” for players who play Something’s In The Air first. Unlike previous versions, you can change the “last date” in the middle of the game. You used to have to start a new game.

Another change from the last version: No more on screen keyboard. It felt a little tacky and not Android compatible. However, there still may be issues with people playing on tablets who cant use their keyboard to type a name in. As a back up, you can pick from a list of 48 male names. Names can also be changed at any time in the middle of the game. (this feature is not in the Android version)

Also, buttons are bigger in height, smaller in width. This makes them easier to touch when playing on a small tablet or phone. I changed the main font as well to make it easier to read on smaller screens. I also fixed a few pictures either because they looked bad or they were not consistent with the new Date Ariane.

A new added feature: You can turn off the “soundtrack” music without turning off the important to the plot music. Music in dance scenes, movie scenes and concert scenes will play as normal, but theme music and background music will not play when soundtrack is off.

Date Ariane: Hooray for Bad Reviews

May 1, 2015January 15, 2020 / arianeb / 12 Comments

As I stated before, when I first started making Date Ariane my goal was to do something a bit outside the norm, to create a game where sex and not violence is the primary driver of drama. I also had to make it with no budget so compromises in quality are inevitable as well.

For both of those reasons, I never really cared if someone did not like Date Ariane. The game is not meant for everybody, and I am very well aware of its flaws.

I mention this because there are now well over 100 videos on You Tube of people playing Date Ariane. Some of them are funny, some of them are well made, some of them are good reviews, many of them are bad reviews, including some extremely popular ones.

I’m of two minds on this phenomenon. On the one hand, reviews of my work do not bother me in the least. I am very well aware that You Tube bloggers like to make fun of stuff they find online, it is what they do and it brings them a lot of subscribers. As I said above, the out of mainstream nature of the game and low budget nature of the game makes Date Ariane a very easy target to make fun of, in fact I do it myself.

On the other hand, I can’t watch these videos. There is something about watching other people play my games that feels a little creepy.

I have never been able to get through any of them. My feelings when I watch them is similar to someone standing uncomfortably close to me. It also does not help that I know the answers too well, so when they make the wrong choices I know it’s going to end badly many moves ahead.

I wanted to know if I am weird feeling this way, so I reached out to a few other indie game producers. Reactions are split around 50-50. Some developers are like me, a little weirded out. Others enjoy watching others play their games.

Developer reactions to mixed reviews seems split as well. I guess it depends on what your goals are. My goals are to make something I enjoy and just put it out there and let the audience find it. Other developers with more loftier goals of mainstream success can take bad reviews a little harder. I can understand that. Even though I say bad reviews don’t bother me, if Date Ariane got nothing but bad reviews when I first put it out there, I would have taken it down and would have never made improvements or expansions.

And speaking of improvements, my on again, off again project of making a Renpy version of Date Ariane is on again. It was absolutely necessary to do the graphic update before attempting it again. My previous attempts were way too ambitious, my goal this time is to keep it simple. My other goals:

A downloadable game that works on any computer without needing a browser.
Much cleaner code that can be edited and expanded easily.
Sound, music, and special effects you can’t do in HTML.

Why make a downloadable Renpy version of the game when the online is so successful?

It is true, the online game gets over 1 million unique players annually, while there have been less than 200,000 downloads of the stand alone only Something’s In The Air. My first instinct was to try and make an online version of Something’s In The Air. Two things prevented that from happening, one was the accidental erasure of a hard drive with my only copy ( I was only 5% complete anyways).

The other was the growing popularity of Date Ariane having an affect on my website’s stability. I researched expanding the web sites capacity, but I so far can’t justify the cost. An online SITA would just make it worse.

Making an improved stand alone version of Date Ariane available should make it better instead.

I have no idea how long it will take, probably at least the summer. I am basically rewriting the entire game as there is no way to port the game directly over. What you see above is all I have done so far, about 28 lines of code. Better get started.

Ariane's Life in the Metaverse

Visual Novels by Ariane Barnes

Something’s In The Air