VN Ren'Py Completed Milky Touch [Final] [Studio Kuma]

[qazxsw80]

So the developer would rush end this game and start a new game becoz MT not covering the costs?
I wonder whats the rationale behind this? Like do they somehow project the new game will generate more revenue , or the new game will radically be cut in cost?

Probably the artist gets most of the money, and since the developer plans to keep him, I don't believe it would be cheaper to make the new game.
Probably the developer thinks that the new game is going to be much more succeful than Milky Touch. We can only guess why he thinks this way. Maybe he has some amazing script that he wants to realize or is planning to implement some interesting game mechanics that Milky Touch lacks. At least I hope so. If he is just planning to change the setting and is expecting to make more money just by doing that, then it is wishful thinking.

 

[PaxHadrian17]

The MC doesn't "take the relationship to the next level" at Mossland. He simply kissed Claudia (which was alright) and then suddenly ate her out in public and fucked her. That's it. That is all the story development.
And if you followed the massage route, you must remember that Claudia didn't even know it was the MC who had given her the massage. There is no relationship building in that scene at all.
Yes, Claudia acknowledged that Marcello is a bad husband or whoever he is to her at that time. But so what? What it has to do with fucking her son? There is no any other relationship between the MC and Claudia, but a typical mother-son relationship. Not a single time, as far as I remember, Claudia really showed that she liked the MC as a man, not just as a son.
More than that, Marcello hasn't abandoned anyone yet. He's still leeching off of Claudia. Just a few days ago the MC talked to him at home in the living room. And then he plotted something against Marcello. Something we will not know anything about, since this branch is also abandoned.


It was not a slow burn. It is a rushed story.


Those who say that the so-called free marketing here is worth nothing are simply in denial. This thread alone has 3 300 000 views. More than that, many other websites repost games from here and they also have views, maybe millions. Those views attract people to their Patreon account. And some of those people do pay for the hardware, software and so on.
I bet that Milky Touch got almost all the initial support from this site alone. It is only after the game became quite popular that they started to cross-promote with other developers. Usually, you cannot do it when you have zero supporters yourself, at least not for free.

I said that he gave Claudia 3 orgasms via massage, not that each one was a - 'Here I am Mom, ready to give you an orgasm with my massage skills'

For example - on Day 15, at night, Claudia came to the MC and asked to sleep in his bed.

He offered to give her a massage


Claudia accepted and positioned herself on the MC's bed



The MC massaged her and this ultimately led her to have an orgasm



I see a relationship evolving where Claudia on Day 1 would not have allowed this. I see her treating him as more than a man and you don't.

I don't see any number of images from Milky Touch that I or anyone else could include in a response as changing your mind. You are entrenched in your position and you're not going to move no matter what.

I see Mossland as the culmination of a slow burn and you don't.

We disagree ... and that changes the end game of Milky Touch... Not At All.

Whether someone sees the culmination of a slow burn in Mossland or they do not, in 6 months it will still be over.

All of the so called 'free marketing' will Not have translated into enough people willing to pay $ to support this great VN.

This will simply become another AVN that ends too soon, courtesy of a lack of $ support.

 

[JJJ84]

Probably the artist gets most of the money, and since the developer plans to keep him, I don't believe it would be cheaper to make the new game.
Probably the developer thinks that the new game is going to be much more succeful than Milky Touch. We can only guess why he thinks this way. Maybe he has some amazing script that he wants to realize or is planning to implement some interesting game mechanics that Milky Touch lacks. At least I hope so. If he is just planning to change the setting and is expecting to make more money just by doing that, then it is wishful thinking.

I'm not even sure the new game would generate as much support as Milky Touch.
Never played No more Golden Days, so MT was first title of Kuma that I've played, and I did like how its art style was unique compared to majority of other games in this site.

But with the MT being prematurely being cut earlier than probably originally intended, I think the lustre with game's art that I had initially when I started MT is there no more, and feel just art itself is no longer enough.

For Neon Touch to interest me, I guess it would need to have one hell of a crazy great story, as well as some gameplay mechanics for interaction to set it apart from others.
Unless that happens, don't really see myself being interested in it.

To add, Kuma has been saying $$ is the main reason MT is being cut short - well, with NT other than Patreons factor, what I'd say he should be doing is to abandon the whole voice acting and other possibly unnecessary additions that merely serve as the whole "icing on the cake." (got nothing against the voice actors, in fact, all characters voice acting in MT sounded lovely, having said that it by no means was necessary for the game to work, but merely something that was extra. Majority of games on this site don't contain voice acting, and heck some even don't have music in them, yet these games still get developed by devs).

 

[Kirel]

I agree that VA is the first thing that should go if the budget is tight. IMO, the cost is not worth it.

 

[JJJ84]

I agree that VA is the first thing that should go if the budget is tight. IMO, the cost is not worth it.

Yeah, also following might be divisive among people, but I'd say reduce the number of LIs and keep the cast of characters more tight.

For instance, MT had the issue of there being too many ladies with separate arcs going on in it, with the cast as following:

- Claudia
- Octavia
- Katelyn
- Ashley
- Karen
- Evelyn
- Riley
- Linda

Basically Linda was nothing but a throw away character, and out of the rest, only Claudia, Octavia, and Riley I feel had received from decent to good amount of focus on them (and with game ending in 2~3 updates, the rest either will get no development at all or rushed endings).

I mean huge cast of LIs works if the dev can sustain the game, but if not it would probably be best to have the cast a bit more compact in size rather than trying to branch out LIs and their arcs everywhere (like MT did).

 

[Furabia]

All of the so called 'free marketing' will Not have translated into enough people willing to pay $ to support this great VN.
This will simply become another AVN that ends too soon, courtesy of a lack of $ support.

But surely it must have translated into at least some amount of support that otherwise the devs wouldn't have, right? How come others are making good VN's with more or less the same level of support then?

You see, my point is that I dislike how it's being somewhat implied that MT being cut short is due to a lack of support or not enough support... because that's textbook shifting the blame from the devs to the supporters somehow.

I agree with JJJ84 and lordfridge9: this is more of a mismanagement of the game other than anything, and they also overestimated their game's quality. Just take a look at all of the objective 2-3 star reviews and they explain it pretty clearly.

So at least the devs should be upfront and say: "hey, we fucked up the game's management and spent a lot, and also we overestimated our game quality and the support that it would get (even tough we already get a considerable support...), so we're scrapping it up to try again with a new one". It's a huge red flag how they're blame shifting, and who guarantees that they won't mess up in the same way again?

 

[JJJ84]

this is more of a mismanagement of the game other than anything

Exactly. You pulled the words right out of my mouth.
This one sentence succinctly describes the game's "cut off short" situation and the whole "Why" it happened (without going into so many words/paragraphs like I did, heh).

who guarantees that they won't mess up in the same way again?

You know, if Kuma still does the whole Voice acting and all other "icing on the cake" extra stuff yet again with NT, well I guess I would be like,

 

[Arnav Dasari]

... what I'd say he should be doing is to abandon the whole voice acting and other possibly unnecessary additions that merely serve as the whole "icing on the cake." (got nothing against the voice actors, in fact, all characters voice acting in MT sounded lovely, having said that it by no means was necessary for the game to work, but merely something that was extra.

... I'd say reduce the number of LIs and keep the cast of characters more tight.

I concur on both points. In fact, for the latter point I made almost the same suggestion on their discord:

I believe it would be wise to bring down the list of available romanceable women to just three or four. That's what happened to MT after all - the game's wide scope got focused just on Claudia, Riley and Octavia, with many other character routes sidestepped or outright abandoned. That's understandable, because the artist can make only a definite amount of artwork in a month. So with the diminished amount of characters in NT the artist and the writers would have more time to dedicate to the main three heroines' scenes/routes. There are two main issues that people report about MT: A) A lot of text, not enough accompanying pictures; B) Things go way too slow. So, once again, if the amount of the routes/heroines would be smaller from the start, it would give your team an opportunity to: A) make more pictures for every scene; B) distribute scenes more evenly in time - so the first sex scene with a given character would happen in the 1/3 part of the plot, not in the 3/3 like it happened with Claudia and Riley in MT. I'm not saying that MC should ever screw only three females in the course of the plot, but all the other sex partners he'd meet should be treated either like one night stands or side characters in the main three routes - like, for example, Shirley scene was in Claudia's route - just a one time encounter, not a route in it's own right. This would help to avoid Linda's situation - a promising route that had to be abandoned.
Plus, even if it hurts me personally, I think it would be wise to decrease the non-linearity compared with MT. Like, for example, abandoning the idea of two different routes - a romance route and a corruption route, instead focusing on a single route for a single character. Or perhaps, keep the two routes - but only for one character in the entire game. If the game would gather steam and money, the branching story/routes could make a comeback closer to the end of the plot - to allow for several endings.

 

[qazxsw80]

Yeah, also following might be divisive among people, but I'd say reduce the number of LIs and keep the cast of characters more tight.

For instance, MT had the issue of there being too many ladies with separate arcs going on in it, with the cast as following:

Personally, I don't see the point of reducing the number of female characters. It wouldn't lower the cost of making the game neither it would make the game more popular.
Let's imagine for a minute that Milky Touch hadn't had any other characters but Claudia, Octavia and Riley. So what? Sure, those three characters would have had a couple more scenes, but would have it made Milky Touch a better, more popular game or lowered the costs from 4500 dollars (Kuma's break-even costs)? I doubt it. The artist woundn't have needed to draw those avatars of the other characters, but it is a pittance, really.
Basically, without all those additional girls the game would have been just a few updates ahead compared to the current situation. But is Milky Touch going to make 4500 dollars a month after a few updates? Considering the history of Kuma's Patreon account I'm quite sure it won't.
On the other hand, those people who like other female characters, such as Katelyn or Ashley wouldn't have supported the game without them in the cast. As you can see from my signature, those two were my favourite characters. I have been expecting new content with them since forever, and it seems like I'll never see any. To be honest, probably, I woundn't even have followed this game at all without at least some promise of some new content with them.

As far as I can see, many female characters don't lower the costs or make a game less popular, but they do prolong the development of a game, which is actually a good thing for a game on Patreon, if it makes enough money for its developers. The longer you develop a game the more money you receive from patrons. Your next project can always be less successful.

Voice acting is a whole different story. Personally, I think it should be some sort of bonus. Let's say adding it after completing the game and before releasing it in Steam or some other platform. But I really like Claudia's voice nonetheless. I think it is the best voice acting in any adult game I have played.

 

[Arnav Dasari]

... On the other hand, those people who like other female characters, such as Katelyn or Ashley wouldn't have supported the game without them in the cast. As you can see from my signature, those two were my favourite characters. I have been expecting new content with them since forever, and it seems like I'll never see any. To be honest, probably, I woundn't even have followed this game at all without at least some promise of some new content with them.

You kinda have a point here, but a game cannot have a character for every taste there is. (Unless the game in question is Summertime Saga.) MT has a "roster" of nine female characters, but would the game interest you if it didn't have Katelyn and Ashley? Nope, you wouldn't support it. Now, imagine their new game having, say, 10 female characters, and you'd be interested in only one out of them all. With 5 scenes every two months it would take 4 months (or two updates) to give every character one scene. Now the question is; would you be willing to support a game knowing that you'd get three scenes with a character you like in a year. That's if you're lucky. And if you will answer "yes" to that - well, patience is a virtue, but not everyone is as patient as you are.

That's why I believe the most wise thing to do is to scale down the characters list to three or maximum four romanceable characters - but make these characters appealing to the widest audience possible. Would you like Milky Touch if it had four characters - but one of them was Katelyn? So Neon Touch (in my opinion, obviously) should have three(four) very different characters - to cover the majority of gamers' expectations and desires.

Evidently, out of all MT characters Claudia, Riley and Octavia were the most popular with people, therefore Neon Touch should have at least one character like that - for the romance route. Instead of having a separate corruption route for the same character(s) there should be a second character for a, lets call it, a manipulation/domination route - someone like Karen or Katelyn. No idea about a third hypothetical character. Who do people like? Action girls, like Lara Croft?

Voice acting is a whole different story. Personally, I think it should be some sort of bonus. Let's say adding it after completing the game and before releasing it in Steam or some other platform. But I really like Claudia's voice nonetheless. I think it is the best voice acting in any adult game I have played.

The thing with the voice acting is that you have only few characters voiced and all the others being mute it kind of feels off. If you have one or two girls fully voiced in your game you're kinda saying to the players - "yeah, these are the main heroines, their routes are the canon."

I'd rather have voice overs for everyone - but only for the sex scenes. No spoken words, just moans and groans.

For Neon Touch to interest me, I guess it would need to have one hell of a crazy great story, as well as some gameplay mechanics for interaction to set it apart from others.

That's an interesting idea, but what sort of gameplay mechanics? Something like minigames?

Yeah, having a different gameplay experience other than reading text and watching pictures could help NT to stand out from all the other VNs. But adding that is also a dangerous path, because it's a very ambitious path. One example is FOW's Subverse - guys had a lot of money and a lot of time and yet the SHMUP and the tactics sections are very barebones. Another example is David Balsamique's Vega Hunters with its cards minigame - yeah, it's there. And that's all one can say about it. And let's not forget the lockpicking game from MT.

So a minigame for NT shouldn't be grindy, it shouldn't lock a lot of content behind itself and it shouldn't require a lot of work from the coders. And it should be fun to play. Any suggestions?

 

[qazxsw80]

Evidently, out of all MT characters Claudia, Riley and Octavia were the most popular with people, therefore Neon Touch should have at least one character like that - for the romance route. Instead of having a separate corruption route for the same character(s) there should be a second character for a, lets call it, a manipulation/domination route - someone like Karen or Katelyn. No idea about a third hypothetical character. Who do people like? Action girls, like Lara Croft?

Claudia, Riley and Octavia are partly more popular because other characters have almost no content at all.
What came first the chicken or the egg? Those three charaters are popular and so they have a lot of scenes or those characters have a lot of scenes and so they are popular?
For example, Ashley. That sister-brother stuff is extremely popular in adult games. But there is not a single scene with her (except that out of nowhere masturbation scene, that was reposted from Patreon). More than that there is no relationship between her and the MC. There is no story. Of course people don't like Ashley, because there is no Ashley in the game, only her avatar picture, or whatever it is called.

You kinda have a point here, but a game cannot have a character for every taste there is. (Unless the game in question is Summertime Saga.) MT has a "roster" of nine female characters, but would the game interest you if it didn't have Katelyn and Ashley? Nope, you wouldn't support it. Now, imagine their new game having, say, 10 female characters, and you'd be interested in only one out of them all. With 5 scenes every two months it would take 4 months (or two updates) to give every character one scene.

From the beginning Milky Touch was positioned as an incest game. So, it makes sense to have a mother, a sister, an aunt. Add there a teacher (almost everyone's fantasy) and the MC's friend's mother. For me it would be enough. Five. Some people like Riley. I don't understand it since in my opinion it is extremely boring, all that banal boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. Just fucking dowload Tinder and you have it in your life. But fine. Six.
But three is not enough. You are proposing to make them as much appealing to a wide audience as possible. It can easily backfire. They will be so common, so boring, so typical that none will want to play the same crap again that they have played a thousand times in different games.

The thing with the voice acting is that you have only few characters voiced and all the others being mute it kind of feels off. If you have one or two girls fully voiced in your game you're kinda saying to the players - "yeah, these are the main heroines, their routes are the canon."

I don't understand this argument at all. This is how it has always been in visual novels and always will be. Since forever. Play any adult Japanese VN and you can see that only important female characters are voiced. And what's wrong with saying to players that you don't have enough money so you decided to voice only your favourite character? Personally, I think only Claudia should be voiced.

Now the question is; would you be willing to support a game knowing that you'd get three scenes with a character you like in a year. That's if you're lucky. And if you will answer "yes" to that - well, patience is a virtue, but not everyone is as patient as you are.

I learn from my mistakes. I never support any games on Patreon anymore. This all Milky Touch situation proved it once again that I was right in not supporting it. Back then I wrote to the developer that I was not going to support but would buy it once it completed. Unfortunately, the way I see it, Milky Touch is never going to be completed. A huge dissapointment to me.

So a minigame for NT shouldn't be grindy, it shouldn't lock a lot of content behind itself and it shouldn't require a lot of work from the coders. And it should be fun to play. Any suggestions

Well, it is the developer who should make suggestions, not us, since he decided to abandon the current game in order to start something new and better.

 

[JJJ84]

Personally, I don't see the point of reducing the number of female characters. It wouldn't lower the cost of making the game neither it would make the game more popular.
Let's imagine for a minute that Milky Touch hadn't had any other characters but Claudia, Octavia and Riley. So what? Sure, those three characters would have had a couple more scenes, but would have it made Milky Touch a better, more popular game or lowered the costs from 4500 dollars (Kuma's break-even costs)? I doubt it. The artist woundn't have needed to draw those avatars of the other characters, but it is a pittance, really.
Basically, without all those additional girls the game would have been just a few updates ahead compared to the current situation. But is Milky Touch going to make 4500 dollars a month after a few updates? Considering the history of Kuma's Patreon account I'm quite sure it won't.
On the other hand, those people who like other female characters, such as Katelyn or Ashley wouldn't have supported the game without them in the cast. As you can see from my signature, those two were my favourite characters. I have been expecting new content with them since forever, and it seems like I'll never see any. To be honest, probably, I woundn't even have followed this game at all without at least some promise of some new content with them.

As far as I can see, many female characters don't lower the costs or make a game less popular, but they do prolong the development of a game, which is actually a good thing for a game on Patreon, if it makes enough money for its developers. The longer you develop a game the more money you receive from patrons. Your next project can always be less successful.

Voice acting is a whole different story. Personally, I think it should be some sort of bonus. Let's say adding it after completing the game and before releasing it in Steam or some other platform. But I really like Claudia's voice nonetheless. I think it is the best voice acting in any adult game I have played.

Well, I'm no expert on the matter so I can't say anything definitively, but I'll say this; the whole Chinese restaurant story and Linda scene with MC itself felt like a waste of resources.

Was the sex scene with the MC hot? Yes it was, not gonna lie. But her character had a paper thin plot (thinks husband cheated on her, so clings onto and sex with MC), and immediately after the sex scene, her story got thrown away, abandoned.
If that storyline continued to be developed I guess the point of her character could have been justified, but it was not.

I really would have wished for time and effort spent developing that part to be spent further developing other characters, or spent developing LIs which lacked focus compared to others.

Also, games like Chasing Sunsets is showing that a game can work even with just 2 main LIs (that game has Jaye and Mallory as main girls, even though there are few side girls MC fools around with sometimes) compared to the normal LI counts games around this site generally has, so I'm curious to see if something like that will work out if Dev would give it a go.

That's an interesting idea, but what sort of gameplay mechanics? Something like minigames?

Yeah, having a different gameplay experience other than reading text and watching pictures could help NT to stand out from all the other VNs. But adding that is also a dangerous path, because it's a very ambitious path. One example is FOW's Subverse - guys had a lot of money and a lot of time and yet the SHMUP and the tactics sections are very barebones. Another example is David Balsamique's Vega Hunters with its cards minigame - yeah, it's there. And that's all one can say about it. And let's not forget the lockpicking game from MT.

So a minigame for NT shouldn't be grindy, it shouldn't lock a lot of content behind itself and it shouldn't require a lot of work from the coders. And it should be fun to play. Any suggestions?

Well, it's really gonna depend on what sort of opportunities there are for gameplay mechanics to be inserted in.
Would the story involve gun fights? Melee hand-to-hand combat? Driving and Chase sequences? etc etc

Various things would come into factor.

One thing I would say for sure is that there should always be option to turn on and off the gameplay at any time (it should never be forced upon everybody).
And yes, with gameplay grind should be as minimized as possible (not sure 100% eliminating grind is possible, but I'm okay with grinding if it is on a mild level, not taxing).

For examples of combat, well the short combat simulation against the goblin in the game "My Real Desire" could possibly work if it's going for real time QTEs.
Or it could be turn based like Ataegina with the system being reinterpreted for cyberpunk instead of fantasy.

Not sure I can think of anything for driving though.

Unsure how above gameplay examples wil fare in terms of coding resources and efforts, but regardless, just some examples I'm throwing around heh.
As I said, it's all gonna come down to what sort of action there is.

From the beginning Milky Touch was positioned as an incest game. So, it makes sense to have a mother, a sister, an aunt. Add there a teacher (almost everyone's fantasy) and the MC's friend's mother. For me it would be enough. Five. Some people like Riley. I don't understand it since in my opinion it is extremely boring, all that banal boyfriend-girlfriend relationship.

Well, would have to disagree there.
For me, it would depend on how natural each character feels with the flow of story, and how likable they are. And in both of those cases in my opinion I'd say Riley and her arc did it better than Claudia and her arc (This is not to say Claudia is a bad character in any way, I just felt more connected with Riley's arc than Claudia's even before the whole Mossland mess).

And in terms of critiquing originality, well I'd have to say I don't feel the whole incest relationship being any more original than the boyfriend-girlfriend relatonship tbh.
Perhaps I would feel that way if MT was the first ever incest game title that I played, but it's not (with this site offering smorgasbord of incest games with varying qualities, heh). MT wasn't my first incest title, and it won't be the last (same with the whole boyfriend-girlfriend titles)

But different strokes for different folks I guess (shrugs).

Well, it is the developer who should make suggestions, not us, since he decided to abandon the current game in order to start something new and better.

Well yeah, of course. But for some bizarre reason I sort of find it therapeutic

 

[xXlotus0]

How do I install the Android version? There's no apk file inside the zip

 

[DankCornelius]

Well, I'm no expert on the matter so I can't say anything definitively, but I'll say this; the whole Chinese restaurant story and Linda scene with MC itself felt like a waste of resources.

Was the sex scene with the MC hot? Yes it was, not gonna lie. But her character had a paper thin plot (thinks husband cheated on her, so clings onto and sex with MC), and immediately after the sex scene, her story got thrown away, abandoned.
If that storyline continued to be developed I guess the point of her character could have been justified, but it was not.

In general, I think a lot of the deviations off from the story, shouldn't have been done until the actual main story of the game was complete. There's a lot of tertiary sex scenes now looking back on the in-between development, for example the entirety of Day 17 is a sideplot of the player meeting Shirley, who has really no real content before or after that. That day and scenario could have been used for any other main character, such as Karen or even Katelyn, and furthered either one's relationship with MC.

But even with main characters, like Octavia, her Day 15 titjob scene is a premature bad ending route, which seems like a missed opportunity seeing that it could probably have been used to further along the corruption route arc with her. In retrospect, if the team just made sure to focus on completing content for the main story, even for just a few character's arc, instead of sidetracking to multiple different characters or scenarios unneeded for the main plot, they could have probably efficiently wrapped the story up by their current deadline for stopping the game development AND have had enough tertiary content to be spliced into the game.

 

[Arnav Dasari]

Claudia, Riley and Octavia are partly more popular because other characters have almost no content at all.
What came first the chicken or the egg?
Those three charaters are popular and so they have a lot of scenes or those characters have a lot of scenes and so they are popular?

So I counted. Counted the number of scenes in the first half of the game, the first ten in-game days - the period when gamers were supposed to get acquainted with the characters and decide on their personal preferences. Here's the statistic:

14 scenes total;
6 Claudia's scenes (there's a lot of stuff on Day 10, but I counted only the scenes worth of fapping to);
2 Octavia's scenes;
1 Riley's scene (in which she just plays her violin).

On one hand, the large number of scenes with Claudia shouldn't surprise anyone - she is the mother in an incest game. (And a very lovely and beautiful character in her own right.) On the other hand the second place on the number of scenes goes to Karen. She has whooping three scenes - which is the same as Octavia and Riley combined. And yet she lacks the popularity of the "lovely trio"; I'm not 100% percent sure, but I believe that the most popular is Claudia, then Riley, then Octavia or, big maybe, Karen. If it was merely about content, as you imply, then Karen should be far more popular than Riley. I think there was a survey on the Patreon page somewhere about who the supporters prefer - I can try to find it to back up my claims, if you want. If I fail to find it, we can always have such a survey right here on F95.

From the beginning Milky Touch was positioned as an incest game. So, it makes sense to have a mother, a sister, an aunt. Add there a teacher (almost everyone's fantasy) and the MC's friend's mother. For me it would be enough. Five.

When it comes to frugality, five is excessive. An aunt is a pale substitute of a mother, the same goes for a mother's friend. A mother, a sister and a teacher - that's the holy trinity of the schoolboy porn games. The rest is entirely optional.

Come to think of that, Riley fits the "sister" archetype quite nicely - except lacking the whole taboo aspect, which is not a universally bad thing.

Some people like Riley. I don't understand it since in my opinion it is extremely boring, all that banal boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. Just fucking dowload Tinder and you have it in your life. But fine. Six.

I'm one of these people. And I like her, like her a lot, because - a self-revelation moment here, pls no bully - I missed out on the whole teenage love experience. I never had this stereotypical "first love"; something pure and exciting and, most importantly, reciprocal. So my only way to cope with that is listening to "Tool", pumping iron at 3 AM, crying into a pillow and playing porn games. Tinder just isn't the same.

But three is not enough. You are proposing to make them as much appealing to a wide audience as possible. It can easily backfire. They will be so common, so boring, so typical that none will want to play the same crap again that they have played a thousand times in different games.

That really depends on how these characters would come out to be. As I just said I like MT characters a lot - take Riley, for example. Her character type is quite standard - a good shy unexperienced girl who falls for MC. You find it boring. I, and many other guys, find her route captivating - because of how she's written, the details of her as a character, not her basic archetype.

So what I'm proposing for NT is to have LIs that would fall into popular archetypes, not making the character themselves to be walking cliches. The characters that would embody these archetypes should be, of course, lovely and lively and detailed and nuanced, not boring and typical - and judging by MT I'm not really concerned in that regard. Your personal mileage may vary, of course.

What archetypes I'm talking about?
- A type akin to the three most popular characters of MT, which for the lack of a better term I would describe as "sweet". Please note, that while COR - all three of them - do fall into the same archetype, each one of them has a specific flavour to their sweetness. Claudia is double sweet, balancing it out with a bitter taste of taboo breaking. Octavia has her sweetness toned by the the sour coercion undertone. Riley is very vanilla and fresh - a true classic. People love loving lovelies, as we have established in the beginning of this post.
- A type that no player would feel guilty dominating or exploiting. The bitchy archetype. Once again, Karen, Katelyn, Shirley and Ashley - all of them could be described as "a bitch" (of various degrees of coldness or hotness), but all of them are different characters, sharing only the archetype. Again, people love fucking bitches.
- A third type for a third hypothetical character. Don't really have an idea, my own needs are satisfied by the first two archetypes. But that's not about me, it's what the majority of gamers would like. Thus I'm suggesting an action-girl archetype, because I believe a lot of people would like such a character. Also the setting fits.

So - three different archetypes, three different characters. Also, along with the differences in personality and looks, they probably should belong to the different age categories - one youngster girl (18-22), one middle aged lady (25-35) and one MILF (35-50).

I don't understand this argument at all. This is how it has always been in visual novels and always will be. Since forever. Play any adult Japanese VN and you can see that only important female characters are voiced. And what's wrong with saying to players that you don't have enough money so you decided to voice only your favourite character? Personally, I think only Claudia should be voiced.

Argumentum ad numeram doesn't prove that some practice is proper. "That's how it always have been", "that's how everyone's doing it" - yeah, well, but is it the most efficient way? Ideally, developers should abstain from forcing their personal preferences on players. "Here's your childhood friend, she's the only one who's voiced, she has the most content, her ending is the true ending. Enjoy." Well snap, what if I want to fuck her hot milf mom? Too bad, you don goofed, here's your meager three scenes with the milf and a bad ending where you commit sudoku, your friend commits sudoku, and her hot milf mom commits sudoku. Many such cases!

Well, you could say that the hot milf Claudia was going to get most content anyhow by the virtue of being MC's mother in an incest game. But I don't really think that NT is going to be an incest type of game or a game with any sort of central female characters - I would be very surprised if NT's MC, for example, would have a wife right from the start. My brows would really freaking rise.

 

[Arnav Dasari]

Well, it is the developer who should make suggestions, not us ...

Well yeah, of course. But for some bizarre reason I sort of find it therapeutic

As I put it on their Discord, "at this point I'm just channeling my frustration from MT demise into something productive".

...
Well, it's really gonna depend on what sort of opportunities there are for gameplay mechanics to be inserted in.
Would the story involve gun fights? Melee hand-to-hand combat? Driving and Chase sequences? etc etc
...

Well, the devs have already stated that they're going to design weapons, so guns would play a role at least plot-wise - as the cyberpunk setting demands.
I have to say that I didn't play "My Real Desire" or "Ataegina", but I just can't imagine a proper real time action experience in a RenPy game. Something turn-based - may be.
After giving it some thought I think the optimal choice for an "action" minigame would be hacking. Since no one knows how hacking would look like in the future, it gives the developers a lot of freedom in depicting it visually and gameplay-wise. It could be as simple as their MT's lockpicking minigame - just click the LMB at the right time. A very basic setup that they already have some experience in.

I think it could take the place of MT's "magic massage", which gave orgasms to every woman MC touched. I'm not sure it should be used on the main LIs, though - I'd like to gradually conquer them for the proper feel of achievement; not using shortcut cheats to see scenes with them (like the massage felt at times). It could be used on side characters like prostitutes or girls to pick up for one night stands. Like the charm dialogue skills in VTMB - if you're a real cyberscum just hack someone's brain to make them suck you off in the bar's bathroom stall, or to make a prostitute think you've already paid her. Fulfill your male fantasies, that's what video games are for.

... In retrospect, if the team just made sure to focus on completing content for the main story, even for just a few character's arc, instead of sidetracking to multiple different characters or scenarios unneeded for the main plot, they could have probably efficiently wrapped the story up by their current deadline for stopping the game development AND have had enough tertiary content to be spliced into the game.

Well, for better or for worse they now have the opportunity to make everything right from the start. Speaking of tertiary content - I guess it's time for another repost of my another Discord suggestion:

I'd like to expand my thoughts on the "less routes - more content" suggestion I've made earlier. As I repeatedly stated, I do find Milky Touch characters' routes compelling and its plot interesting enough. But let's be honest; a lot of players - perhaps the majority of them - doesn't give two shits about plot or characters, they just want to get instant gratification - they want to see dem titties. I think there's a way to cater to their needs and in the same time have meaningful and beautiful romances with the main cast of heroines. The answer is prostitutes/one night stands. This way you can have full-fledged sex scenes right in the very first chapter. Just give the MC an opportunity to rent a call-girl for an evening or pick up a random girl at a bar. Meanwhile the main heroines should remain "pure" for the first couple (3-4) chapters, not going further than a kiss with MC. (I'm talking about romance routes here.) So the amount of sex MC can get would be distributed more or less even between the early and the latter chapters - early in the game he would screw random NPCs, but as the plot progresses he would bed his love interests.

 

[Deleted member 3581761]

too many long worded posts. Here is a short one, good game.

 

[JJJ84]

When it comes to frugality, five is excessive. An aunt is a pale substitute of a mother, the same goes for a mother's friend. A mother, a sister and a teacher - that's the holy trinity of the schoolboy porn games. The rest is entirely optional.

Come to think of that, Riley fits the "sister" archetype quite nicely - except lacking the whole taboo aspect, which is not a universally bad thing.

It is certainly excessive yes, but I think probably the bigger problem was the way some of these character archtypes were utilized (or wasn't even utilized for that matter lol).

Take Ashley for instance. Her (barely existing) storyline in MT has been nothing more than support for the bigger storyline, a.k.a. Aunt's (Katelyn's) storyline. The game made her Katelyn's assistant so Ashley's character didn't have any legs to stand on her own feet, and her storyline was just completely dependent on Katelyn.
That I found to be an issue.

If I take an example of another game as for comparison, let's compare MT with the dev Caribdis's game "Once in a Lifetime" (a game that I'd recommend everyone on this site should try playing with it now completed).
That game, has the incest patch which turns 4 characters into family or relatives of the MC, and the game flows better that way.

Basically with the incest patch,

- Carla becomes mom
- Lauren becomes sister (same age as MC)
- Judie becomes little sister (1 yr younger than MC)
- Iris becomes cousin (same age as Judie)

In addition, there's also

- Rebecca, who is MC's teacher.

and 2 other LIs.

I mean one might just question "Isn't this excessive?" with the above cast, but it really is not the case in OIAL.
Each of the sisters have their own arcs, and is not dependent on another for their storylines (same goes for mom) because they do their own thing in several instances (despite at times sharing scenes).
And while Iris's character does depend on Judie's arc a lot, Iris is a pretty minor character in that game, and she almost always hangs around with Judie being best friends which in a lot of ways justifies the dependency (having said that, the game does give a little bit of side events for Iris at times too).


Regarding Riley from MT, I think it's the fact that there is no taboo factor in it that felt like a breath of fresh air to me.
Pretty much almost all characters have a degree of taboo factor in it, some much more than others (Claudia, Katelyn, Ashley), some to moderate degree (Karen, Octavia etc).
But amidst all these characters screaming "taboo!" all over, here was this character who I felt had an incredible arc and had a very likeable personality. Some may argue that it's boring and she sticks out like a sore thumb when compared to others, but I just don't agree with that opinion.

Her story was sweet and in ways heartwarming, like Riley's character herself.

Well, the devs have already stated that they're going to design weapons, so guns would play a role at least plot-wise - as the cyberpunk setting demands.
I have to say that I didn't play "My Real Desire" or "Ataegina", but I just can't imagine a proper real time action experience in a RenPy game. Something turn-based - may be.
After giving it some thought I think the optimal choice for an "action" minigame would be hacking. Since no one knows how hacking would look like in the future, it gives the developers a lot of freedom in depicting it visually and gameplay-wise. It could be as simple as their MT's lockpicking minigame - just click the LMB at the right time. A very basic setup that they already have some experience in.

I think it could take the place of MT's "magic massage", which gave orgasms to every woman MC touched. I'm not sure it should be used on the main LIs, though - I'd like to gradually conquer them for the proper feel of achievement; not using shortcut cheats to see scenes with them (like the massage felt at times). It could be used on side characters like prostitutes or girls to pick up for one night stands. Like the charm dialogue skills in VTMB - if you're a real cyberscum just hack someone's brain to make them suck you off in the bar's bathroom stall, or to make a prostitute think you've already paid her. Fulfill your male fantasies, that's what video games are for.

I wanted to upload a screenshot of combat gameplay of "My Real Desire", but that part of the save is lost so not much I can do about it.

But here is a screenshot of Ataegina combat:

Spoiler

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Yeah, it's fantasy, but still I'd say the system is still applicable in Cyberpunk theme.
And add in elements like "take cover" etc for gun fights etc could work.

 

[qazxsw80]

When it comes to frugality, five is excessive. An aunt is a pale substitute of a mother, the same goes for a mother's friend. A mother, a sister and a teacher - that's the holy trinity of the schoolboy porn games. The rest is entirely optional.

Come to think of that, Riley fits the "sister" archetype quite nicely - except lacking the whole taboo aspect, which is not a universally bad thing.

Frugality? The one major source of costs is the artist. His salary is so-called fixed costs. No matter how few or many characters are in the game, he is still going to get the same amount of money. Since we deciced that there should be no voice acting, there are no additional costs here depending on the number of characters. The same situation with coding and writing. It doesn't matter how many characters here. The only problem with many characters is that supportes need to wait more time for the character they like to appear the game. But is there such a difference in waiting between 5 and 3 character? In my opinion, there is not. But additional characters can attract additional people to the game. For, example, Our Red String has 9 female characters! And more than that, just imagine it didn't have that blonde girl and the girl with glasses, I'm quite sure the game would lose the third of its support. More than that, you never know which characters are gonna be liked before you add them into the game.
Three is not enough. Adding just three characters will be a major risk and possibly a major mistake. What if people won't like one or two of them? There will be no support for the game since there will be only one likeable character. Let's imagine Milky Touch didn't have Riley and Octavia. Only Claudia, Karen and Ashley. Would you like the game the same way? Probably not. That's what happens when you have only few characters - you never know which ones to choose to put into the game. People didn't like Karen and the developer stopped making scenes with her. But if she was one of only three characters in the game? And what if people woundn't have liked Ashley. There would have been only Claudia left.

Argumentum ad numeram doesn't prove that some practice is proper. "That's how it always have been", "that's how everyone's doing it" - yeah, well, but is it the most efficient way? Ideally, developers should abstain from forcing their personal preferences on players. "Here's your childhood friend, she's the only one who's voiced, she has the most content, her ending is the true ending. Enjoy." Well snap, what if I want to fuck her hot milf mom? Too bad, you don goofed, here's your meager three scenes with the milf and a bad ending where you commit sudoku, your friend commits sudoku, and her hot milf mom commits sudoku. Many such cases!

Basically, what you are saying is PEOPLE ARE STUPID. Other developers did it all wrong for 30 years and I know how to do it right.
Then you are saying about some "ideal" way of doing things. Ideallly for who? I personally think that developers should develop the game the way they really want, they are passionate about. This way the result in almost all cases will be better. The second choice is there should be some polls where developers ask their patrons. Like, "What character do you want to be voiced? One, two, three, four, five or none".

The answer is prostitutes/one night stands. This way you can have full-fledged sex scenes right in the very first chapter. Just give the MC an opportunity to rent a call-girl for an evening or pick up a random girl at a bar. Meanwhile the main heroines should remain "pure" for the first couple (3-4) chapters, not going further than a kiss with MC. (I'm talking about romance routes here.) So the amount of sex MC can get would be distributed more or less even between the early and the latter chapters - early in the game he would screw random NPCs, but as the plot progresses he would bed his love interests.

It would be an enormous waste of time and resources. People here are talking about concentrating resources, what a stupid choice was to make a scene with Linda (or whatever her name), that there are too many characters and so on. But at the same time you are proposing of adding lewd scenes with no story, no emotional connection and so on. I haven't seen even one game where such stuff is popular among supporters, adds anything to the story or is exciting in any way. If you want lewd pictures with no story, just go to e-hentai. There is a lot of that stuff overe there.

I'm one of these people. And I like her, like her a lot, because - a self-revelation moment here, pls no bully - I missed out on the whole teenage love experience. I never had this stereotypical "first love"; something pure and exciting and, most importantly, reciprocal. So my only way to cope with that is listening to "Tool", pumping iron at 3 AM, crying into a pillow and playing porn games. Tinder just isn't the same.

That is what I said. Some people love that boring stuff for teenage girls or bored housewives.
Personally, I think it was one of the major problems with Milky Touch. You and patrons like you did everything possible to make it as vanilla as possible. I think the developer had had a much more exciting story when he started Milky Touch. Love stories and no multiple penetration, no sister, no corruption, no Victor, no NTR, no IR , no anything. Sure, current supporters are against it and so it shouldn't be implemented. Right? In my opinion, wrong. Yes, it fits current patrons, but new ones are not attracted to the game, since there is no spicy stuff in it. It has become dull. And dull games get very little support. As some of the guys here has already said, he and other people support it just because of the nice pictures. That's it. No excitement in the game.

Yeah, it's fantasy, but still I'd say the system is still applicable in Cyberpunk theme.
And add in elements like "take cover" etc for gun fights etc could work.

Oh, come on. People here were not able to go through that lockpicking mini game and now you are proposing this...

 

[lordfridge9]

Frugality? The one major source of costs is the artist. His salary is so-called fixed costs. No matter how few or many characters are in the game, he is still going to get the same amount of money. Since we deciced that there should be no voice acting, there are no additional costs here depending on the number of characters. The same situation with coding and writing. It doesn't matter how many characters here. The only problem with many characters is that supportes need to wait more time for the character they like to appear the game. But is there such a difference in waiting between 5 and 3 character? In my opinion, there is not. But additional characters can attract additional people to the game. For, example, Our Red String has 9 female characters! And more than that, just imagine it didn't have that blonde girl and the girl with glasses, I'm quite sure the game would lose the third of its support. More than that, you never know which characters are gonna be liked before you add them into the game.
Three is not enough. Adding just three characters will be a major risk and possibly a major mistake. What if people won't like one or two of them? There will be no support for the game since there will be only one likeable character. Let's imagine Milky Touch didn't have Riley and Octavia. Only Claudia, Karen and Ashley. Would you like the game the same way? Probably not. That's what happens when you have only few characters - you never know which ones to choose to put into the game. People didn't like Karen and the developer stopped making scenes with her. But if she was one of only three characters in the game? And what if people woundn't have liked Ashley. There would have been only Claudia left.


Basically, what you are saying is PEOPLE ARE STUPID. Other developers did it all wrong for 30 years and I know how to do it right.
Then you are saying about some "ideal" way of doing things. Ideallly for who? I personally think that developers should develop the game the way they really want, they are passionate about. This way the result in almost all cases will be better. The second choice is there should be some polls where developers ask their patrons. Like, "What character do you want to be voiced? One, two, three, four, five or none".


It would be an enormous waste of time and resources. People here are talking about concentrating resources, what a stupid choice was to make a scene with Linda (or whatever her name), that there are too many characters and so on. But at the same time you are proposing of adding lewd scenes with no story, no emotional connection and so on. I haven't seen even one game where such stuff is popular among supporters, adds anything to the story or is exciting in any way. If you want lewd pictures with no story, just go to e-hentai. There is a lot of that stuff overe there.

That is what I said. Some people love that boring stuff for teenage girls or bored housewives.
Personally, I think it was one of the major problems with Milky Touch. You and patrons like you did everything possible to make it as vanilla as possible. I think the developer had had a much more exciting story when he started Milky Touch. Love stories and no multiple penetration, no sister, no corruption, no Victor, no NTR, no IR , no anything. Sure, current supporters are against it and so it shouldn't be implemented. Right? In my opinion, wrong. Yes, it fits current patrons, but new ones are not attracted to the game, since there is no spicy stuff in it. It has become dull. And dull games get very little support. As some of the guys here has already said, he and other people support it just because of the nice pictures. That's it. No excitement in the game.


Oh, come on. People here were not able to go through that lockpicking mini game and now you are proposing this...

I'm soo sorry you're so angry about the existence of "vanilla" and it's paying supporters. But do not fret, since I've cancelled my support today, now's your chance splash the cash to show the devs how they're missing out on all that sweet sweet ntr trash

I'm frankly insulted at your belief that it's "their fault"