VN Ren'Py A Couple's Duet of Love & Lust [v0.13.8] [King B]

[Pr0GamerJohnny]

I disagree, even in the supposedly "sub-cuck route" Nat still seems to be entirely ruled by Ethans wishes, with the exception of a few small choices I think. So even the Sub-cuck route and the normal cuck route are mostly the same so far, and like I said before, Ethan did initially start the cuckold discussion so it would make sense for him to like most of it.
But I think in terms of character development if it doesn't affect Nat at all, meaning she doesn't start having thoughts to expand her horizons or push Ethan into some scenarios, then it still only feels like it's Ethans ball-game. Basically all ideas and feelings are mostly from Ethans side which is driving the ship completely, like I said with a few minor exceptions.

And even if Nat gives in and embrace her lust, it's still Ethans road they are driving on until SHE starts pushing some ideas of this cuckold life-style that they have. It's mostly Ethan telling Nat what he likes, and she goes "Ahh smirk" and indulges him. It's never the other way around, so again, yes she lacks agency and her thoughts are rarely engaged. Everything is for Ethan.

huh? The whole second hotel scene is a joint direction. Ethans "I love you" or not determines path, then his pull away or not, then nat's "make him cum" or not - these 3 junctions determine rest of scene.

I think the outlines were overdone at first, in the later scenes, they have almost gone. Thanfully

I didn't have as much a problem with the outlines as the expressions. I kept trying to get into game, and I finally realized what was making me hate it so easily was darrell's stock expressions. Go look at the expressions icon folder yourself, the dev could have saved himself some time by making a renpy layeredimage setup like:

layeredimage darrel:

group sneer auto
attribute happy
attribute mean
attribute angry


To unpack this if its unclear:

In nearly every expression he's drawn with sharply slanted eyebrows close to the eyes. This would generally encompass angry/cocky/confident/serious moods- but there's no other brows. In-game, when his expressions have a normal smile, he looks fine, but the majority of the smiles are slightly lobsided, giving this sneer/smirk appearance to everything. Some may like that, but it was just obnoxious to constantly see for me, though once I changed the expressions to more of the normal smiles I found the game more enjoyable.

 

[packard1928]

Where do you think it will go on the vanella route where it end with Nat riding Ethan lap. And she is excited watching the others ??? Then there is where she goes to the bed with the others..... it ends.

 

[Big Rooster]

huh? The whole second hotel scene is a joint direction. Ethans "I love you" or not determines path, then his pull away or not, then nat's "make him cum" or not - these 3 junctions determine rest of scene.


I didn't have as much a problem with the outlines as the expressions. I kept trying to get into game, and I finally realized what was making me hate it so easily was darrell's stock expressions. Go look at the expressions icon folder yourself, the dev could have saved himself some time by making a renpy layeredimage setup like:

layeredimage darrel:

group sneer auto
attribute happy
attribute mean
attribute angry


To unpack this if its unclear:

In nearly every expression he's drawn with sharply slanted eyebrows close to the eyes. This would generally encompass angry/cocky/confident/serious moods- but there's no other brows. In-game, when his expressions have a normal smile, he looks fine, but the majority of the smiles are slightly lobsided, giving this sneer/smirk appearance to everything. Some may like that, but it was just obnoxious to constantly see for me, though once I changed the expressions to more of the normal smiles I found the game more enjoyable.

The ol scary eyebrows! Agree, his eyebrow expressions are obnoxious!

 

[Big Rooster]

Where do you think it will go on the vanella route where it end with Nat riding Ethan lap. And she is excited watching the others ??? Then there is where she goes to the bed with the others..... it ends.

Haven't got there yet...

 

[Mommysbuttslut]

Where do you think it will go on the vanella route where it end with Nat riding Ethan lap. And she is excited watching the others ??? Then there is where she goes to the bed with the others..... it ends.

It'll go with Ethan thinking "holy shit this is hot" pumping it up into her for about 2 more lines, and then prematurely ejaculating in front of the entire party. This is Ethan's make or break moment, either he pleases his wife for the first time in his entire life, or he outs himself as an incompetent lover in the presence of multiple bulls at a swingers party while his wife is horny as fuck.

 

[Big Rooster]

It'll go with Ethan thinking "holy shit this is hot" pumping it up into her for about 2 more lines, and then prematurely ejaculating in front of the entire party. This is Ethan's make or break moment, either he pleases his wife for the first time in his entire life, or he outs himself as an incompetent lover in the presence of multiple bulls at a swingers party while his wife is horny as fuck.

And here I thought I was bad
Or he gets a bad case of performance anxiety, with all these bulls and their huge cocks f*cking the sh>t out of the girls, can't get it up at all!

 

[Vrykolakas36]

The whole ANAL discussion just goes to emphasize the point I was trying to make about this game. Not everyone feels the same way about a situation. Not even every cuckold. The protagonist of the game needs to be one you can relate too (Either Ethan or Nat or both). So it should be the players choice whether or not Nat looses her Anal virginity to Ethan or to a Bull and it should be the players choice on how Ethan feels about it and how Nat treats him. Obviously you can't do that if you have 11 different routes because you loose a lot of subtlety and nuance in each individual route trying to keep track of all the branches. This game would be better with fewer routes and the player being able to make more personal choices inside each route about what they want to happen and how they feel about it.

As a personal anecdote. I used to want to have an open relationship with my ex. When we first had Anal sex we talked about if we ever did have an open relationship that only I would get to fuck her in the ass. Later on in my relationship I changed my mind and decided it wasn't a big deal. I would love to have seen another guy fuck her in the ass. Alas we never did have an open relationship and she just ended up cheating on me behind my back.

If I was Ethan I would want my wife's first anal experience to be with me then after that she could fuck whoever she wants in the ASS. She could even roleplay that I never get to fuck her ass again but after the Bull is done and I get to reclaim her that is no longer the case. But I really struggle to relate to Ethan the way this story is written because he lets Nat disrespect him so often even in the loving cuckold path.

 

[Big Rooster]

The whole ANAL discussion just goes to emphasize the point I was trying to make about this game. Not everyone feels the same way about a situation. Not even every cuckold. The protagonist of the game needs to be one you can relate too (Either Ethan or Nat or both). So it should be the players choice whether or not Nat looses her Anal virginity to Ethan or to a Bull and it should be the players choice on how Ethan feels about it and how Nat treats him. Obviously you can't do that if you have 11 different routes because you loose a lot of subtlety and nuance in each individual route trying to keep track of all the branches. This game would be better with fewer routes and the player being able to make more personal choices inside each route about what they want to happen and how they feel about it.

As a personal anecdote. I used to want to have an open relationship with my ex. When we first had Anal sex we talked about if we ever did have an open relationship that only I would get to fuck her in the ass. Later on in my relationship I changed my mind and decided it wasn't a big deal. I would love to have seen another guy fuck her in the ass. Alas we never did have an open relationship and she just ended up cheating on me behind my back.

If I was Ethan I would want my wife's first anal experience to be with me then after that she could fuck whoever she wants in the ASS. She could even roleplay that I never get to fuck her ass again but after the Bull is done and I get to reclaim her that is no longer the case. But I really struggle to relate to Ethan the way this story is written because he lets Nat disrespect him so often even in the loving cuckold path.

The more routes, the broader the potential audience. from a developer's perspective, it's a win-win, but with a lot more work on writing.
I like that the game has a lot of choices, it makes so that every replay I can choose a different path.

 

[Vrykolakas36]

The more routes, the broader the potential audience. from a developer's perspective, it's a win-win, but with a lot more work on writing.
I like that the game has a lot of choices, it makes so that every replay I can choose a different path.

Agreed. But you don't need to create so much complexity that you can no longer write a coherent story. You can also have a lot of choices inside each route instead of having a whole bunch of different routes.

 

[Big Rooster]

Agreed. But you don't need to create so much complexity that you can no longer write a coherent story. You can also have a lot of choices inside each route instead of having a whole bunch of different routes.

hmm... with each choice, you are choosing to take a different route, soo...

 

[Pr0GamerJohnny]

Agreed. But you don't need to create so much complexity that you can no longer write a coherent story. You can also have a lot of choices inside each route instead of having a whole bunch of different routes.

I think the dev has done himself a disservice in the way it's currently written.

If you look through the scripts, he basically makes each path an entirely different label section, when 50-90% of it might be the exact same text (sure one can copy-paste but the size makes fine tuning unwieldy).

The more traditional way would be on a line by line or scene by scene basis you have things like

if ethancuckpath == 1:
et "Wow that's hot!"
elif ethanvanillapath == 1:
et "I suppose we could do that
elif ethanntrpath == 1:
blah blah

etc.

If you've never looked at the script I'd suggest it - it's interesting the way he does it, never seen a game laid out like that before.

 

[Yog-Sloth]

does this game have a gallery?

 

[johnsmith066]

does this game have a gallery?

no, it doesn't have one.

 

[King B]

I think the dev has done himself a disservice in the way it's currently written.

If you look through the scripts, he basically makes each path an entirely different label section, when 50-90% of it might be the exact same text (sure one can copy-paste but the size makes fine tuning unwieldy).

The more traditional way would be on a line by line or scene by scene basis you have things like

if ethancuckpath == 1:
et "Wow that's hot!"
elif ethanvanillapath == 1:
et "I suppose we could do that
elif ethanntrpath == 1:
blah blah

etc.

If you've never looked at the script I'd suggest it - it's interesting the way he does it, never seen a game laid out like that before.

I tried that at the beginning. Becomes a hot mess as the story gets complex and almost impossible to trace back for bugs and references. I still do that for minor variations within specific paths, but the separated main paths keep the code organized and give me less headache when writing and coding.

 

[Brokebacker]

huh? The whole second hotel scene is a joint direction. Ethans "I love you" or not determines path, then his pull away or not, then nat's "make him cum" or not - these 3 junctions determine rest of scene.

You don't get it, it's always Ethan making a decision and then Nat acting based on what Ethan decides. She never makes a decision or have a thought unless Ethan was the instigator of said action or thought. Literally every thought she has is based on Ethans desires, every step forward is based on Ethans decisions. Sometimes it's not obvious because Ethans decision might have been made way back, and not in the specific scene.

She never spawns her own decision based on her own thoughts and feelings, it's always based on what Ethan chooses.
Basically this is Ethans cuckold relationship, and Nat is just along for the journey. Until she makes a decision or have a conversation with him about her own thoughts and desires moving forward, it will still feel like it's Ethan driving this relationship. Again im talking about the mutual cuckold path here, where ethan is the instigator of said relationship.

 

[Pr0GamerJohnny]

You don't get it, it's always Ethan making a decision and then Nat acting based on what Ethan decides. She never makes a decision or have a thought unless Ethan was the instigator of said action or thought. Literally every thought she has is based on Ethans desires, every step forward is based on Ethans decisions. Sometimes it's not obvious because Ethans decision might have been made way back, and not in the specific scene.

She never spawns her own decision based on her own thoughts and feelings, it's always based on what Ethan chooses.
Basically this is Ethans cuckold relationship, and Nat is just along for the journey. Until she makes a decision or have a conversation with him about her own thoughts and desires moving forward, it will still feel like it's Ethan driving this relationship. Again im talking about the mutual cuckold path here, where ethan is the instigator of said relationship.

Well yeah, I'd agree with that overall, but that's because this is a male protagonist game. It seems like you're proposing a mixed protagonist..... which is fine.

Furthermore, doesn't that dynamic more accurately capture real-world cuckold relationship dynamics? Seems like if it was a less asymmetrical relationship, it'd be more of a swinger setup.

 

[Big Rooster]

She never spawns her own decision based on her own thoughts and feelings, it's always based on what Ethan chooses.

Except she does, her decision made here>>> <<<determines the trajectory of the whole rest of the game.

 

[Brokebacker]

Well yeah, I'd agree with that overall, but that's because this is a male protagonist game. It seems like you're proposing a mixed protagonist..... which is fine.

Furthermore, doesn't that dynamic more accurately capture real-world cuckold relationship dynamics? Seems like if it was a less asymmetrical relationship, it'd be more of a swinger setup.

That would only be true if Ethan has sex with other women as well. But since this is his cuckold fantasies manifesting themselves in Nat, I would just like to see more of her thoughts and how this cuckold lifestyle might change her perspective on Ethan and their overall relationship moving forward. That is all.

 

[Brokebacker]

Except she does, her decision made here>>> View attachment 2535408 <<<determines the trajectory of the whole rest of the game.

Yes, like I said a few posts up, there are some exceptions. This would be one of them. However you only get this choice if Ethan didn't interject earlier when Nat talked to Darrel outside, so again it was Ethans choice who ultimately led to this choice now if I remember correctly.

But regardless of that, the further you get into the mutual cuckold path these choices happens less and less, and her inner thoughts and feelings are almost never brought to light, unless she is directly indulging in Ethans desires within a scene.

Also this choice, like you said, determines the trajectory for the rest of the game. I would like more choices from her which doesn't necessarilly change the path of the game, but more so reveal her perspective and her character shift from being in this cuckold relationship. What is she really thinking, what are some of her own desires going forward, will she push Ethan to try something more daring? If her thoughts and ideas going forward are still just gonna be influenced by Ethans desires, i'd say that's a lack of character development and she is essentially the same as when they started. The only thing different is the sexual acts themselves. She is more comfortable with them, but her overall personality and thoughts remain the same outside of sex.

Which is even more unrealistic since this idea was Ethans to begin with and she ended up liking it, of course that would change her views and feelings moving foward. It's like she discovered a side to herself she didn't know existed. Unless she is literally only doing this cuckold thing because Ethan wants it...which is obviously not the case, she likes it too. And that change in her should be addressed in her thoughts and ideas going forward, and not just in sex scenes but also in casual everyday conversations between her and Ethan.

 

[Rastafoo]

I HUNGER FOR MORE SEXY TIME!