Quote from: Smaug on Dec 05, 2022, 01:19 PM

Quote from: Goldo on Nov 28, 2022, 10:21 PM- Support for wide resolutions such as 1920x1080 on all game screens (some events may still look weird, to be ironed out progressively)

This would really elevate the game as it would get rid of the rather poor RenPy image downscaling applied to girl packs.
Will it work for other 16:9 ratios like 2560x1440?

Sure, the tricky part was changing the aspect ratio. Switching to a different 16:9 format should be fine. There are still a few hard-coded dimensions in the game, but we'll iron them out during testing.

What will happen (but I warned about that before) is that the backgrounds from games like Rance will look worse because they are originally low res. If you can look past that, it should be okay.

Might not be impossible, there are some spriter's resource sites that seem to have somewhat larger res backgrounds from Rance games available than right now in BK. When upscaled with Real-ESRGAN (I guess the result could be even better with some background art specific model).

Here is the lowest res background in the game that I reverse searched a higher res original for, then upscaled it with Upscayl and afterwards downscaled and re-encoded (for smaller file size) back to 2560x1440 with Photoshop:

Spoiler

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Here is my collection of images from the internet that might interest you as replacement/alt pics for some backgrounds.

Quote from: Goldo on Dec 05, 2022, 11:48 AMAll right, new question for you guys: What kind of extra information would you like to have during the night's event screens (directly on the right hand side, or in tooltips)?

Advertising

Current night screen

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Suggested changes

Keep the advertising text in the bottom dialogue box, add girl's portrait and name. Flavor-text  takes center stage in this box.
Detailed information/breakdowns are moved to the 'results' area to the right.

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Entertainment/whoring queues

Current night screen

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Suggested changes

Change "Idle customers" to "Customers waiting for service" or "Customers waiting in line", to give it a slightly more negative tone

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Entertainment/whoring performances

Current night screen

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Suggested changes

On the right: Add some graphic elements to make most important data stand out (performance, depleting energy bar, gold result)

In my opinion this is still a bit busy, you could go further by hiding some things in hover-tooltips (eg: hide the breakdown-elements of the 'final result', apart from the roll)

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Get-more-whores screen

Current night screen

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Suggested changes

Even though I feel like this image and the treasure-images have become a part of BK's DNA... Consider changing the harem.jpg image to a "naked" + "rest" + "sad" ("refuse"?, "hurt"?) picture of a working whore, or a girl's empty bedroom picture if there are no whores. That should make the 'disappointment' a bit more palpable.

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Treasure screen

Current night screen

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Suggested changes

Info moved from dialogue box to the right.
Maybe use the now empty dialogue box to hammer home get_warnings() messages? Or if there are no warnings, something like "Tonight's top earner was [girl.name]"

Maybe add a few more "treasure" images for variety, here are some options:
https://imgur.com/a/rWhnefu

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edit: regarding the low res backgrounds, I've upscaled most of BK's images a while ago (I also turned everything into .webp, the code might not always agree with that)

I also shaved off ~160 megabytes by compressing all the sound/music files at some point (here I turned everything into .ogg - again, some code changes required)
Note: I've ran into issues in the past where converting/compressing a sound file might snip off a few milliseconds off the start or end of the file, so this one might need some testing to iron out issues like that.

I like the rest of the proposals, but I'm not a fan of the proposed "Entertainment/whoring performances" suggestions.
Can't really explain it, but I guess it's about consistency with rest of the UI generally using colored text.

Hi,

New player here, and if I would see some improvements, that would be:

- Is there a way to see positive/negative fixations without going in advanced training? If yes, I still haven't found it, that could help choosing girls for contracts

- I often slightly mouseover the Rank / Level / Job star when aiming for job / interact / items, etc... while the popup is showing/hiding, clicking on said buttons doesn't work and needs to click again once the popup animation ends

- About the same previous buttons, if not playing with keyboard shortcuts, I would prefer them in the right side of the UI, above the girls, less mouse left-right-left-right all the time?

- It's hard to have an idea of the energy spent / restored by each girl each week, would be nice to have something indicating it in the schedule as it depends on many factors, and it gets even harder when activating group/bisexual sex (without, of course, players interactions). When having only a few girls, it is okay to check their energy bar daily, with more girls it's not the same

- I did find the classes after 8 in game months. It happens for me that I read faster than I should (especially for a non-native), I don't remember if classes were there the first time I went to the posting screen or if classes unlocks later on, anyway I never got to see them for some time

Keep up the good work, I enjoy most of the game so far, I'd like to understand better a lot of thing, that may come with time though

Quote from: Kaelys on Dec 06, 2022, 03:30 AM- Is there a way to see positive/negative fixations without going in advanced training? If yes, I still haven't found it, that could help choosing girls for contracts

There is. If you click on the notebook and go to the sex tab. (You need to unlock it first either with advanced training or with asking about her taste to see it).
On a side note for Goldo. I wouldnt mind it if you changed the color for it as it's a bit unreadable as of now.

Quote from: Kaelys on Dec 06, 2022, 03:30 AM- I did find the classes after 8 in game months. It happens for me that I read faster than I should (especially for a non-native), I don't remember if classes were there the first time I went to the posting screen or if classes unlocks later on, anyway I never got to see them for some time

The "classes" are there from the beginning in the posting screen.

Quote from: vadi92 on Dec 06, 2022, 03:40 PM

Quote from: Kaelys on Dec 06, 2022, 03:30 AM- Is there a way to see positive/negative fixations without going in advanced training? If yes, I still haven't found it, that could help choosing girls for contracts

There is. If you click on the notebook and go to the sex tab. (You need to unlock it first either with advanced training or with asking about her taste to see it).
On a side note for Goldo. I wouldnt mind it if you changed the color for it as it's a bit unreadable as of now.

Hmm... thanks, would be better if one could access that info when picking the girl when sending her to the job I think.

Quote from: vadi92 on Dec 06, 2022, 03:40 PM

Quote from: Kaelys on Dec 06, 2022, 03:30 AM- I did find the classes after 8 in game months. It happens for me that I read faster than I should (especially for a non-native), I don't remember if classes were there the first time I went to the posting screen or if classes unlocks later on, anyway I never got to see them for some time

The "classes" are there from the beginning in the posting screen.

So it could be made more... visible in some way, I think, but it's maybe only me being dumb here. 

Quote from: Kaelys on Dec 06, 2022, 04:28 PMHmm... thanks, would be better if one could access that info when picking the girl when sending her to the job I think.

For the monthly contracts Sill mention it quite a few times. A week before, a day before and at the last day when you send the girl for the contracts. So you cant say that she didn't mentioned it and you couldnt choose wich girl you wanted to send.

Quote from: Kaelys on Dec 06, 2022, 03:30 AM- About the same previous buttons, if not playing with keyboard shortcuts, I would prefer them in the right side of the UI, above the girls, less mouse left-right-left-right all the time?

I'm curious if this is a common request or not. The work involved is non-trivial, so I'd rather be sure before applying any changes.

Edit: Using neronero's files, I have updated the upscaled images, music and sound files (everything will now be .webp and .ogg). The increase in image files' size and the decrease in sound files' size more or less cancel each other out.

Just a quick update: After a much needed holiday break, I am now finished with UI improvements and working on the new mechanic for evil players. Next I'll finish up the story line for Chapter 3 and v0.3 will be ready for testing. No due date yet, but things are progressing at pace. Thank you all for your suggestions!

Can't wait