Ren'Py A House in the Rift [v0.7.20r1] [Zanith]

[Pixillin']

Also the dev has this weird hate-boner/mary sue bipolar thing going with Rae where he can't seem to decide if she should be a snake-in-the-grass bitch or your soulmate.

Which is another reason I'm starting to think the game is ready to come into port, the dev seems to be losing the plot a little bit and we're puttering in circles without going anywhere.

I haven't played the last couple of updates, but my impression of Rae (who is one of my all time favorite Li) is that she was a snake-in-the-grass bitch (aka cloak and dagger political operative) who is also the MCs soulmate and is currently caught in a tug-o-war between duty to her people, and her mentor and love for the MC, combined with a desire to leave it all behind and live a normal life. I agree that we should be nearing the end, but it also feels like there is a lot of story to play out for most of the other women - and then the main story, whatever that is going to be.

 

[fdefiii]

Also the dev has this weird hate-boner/mary sue bipolar thing going with Rae where he can't seem to decide if she should be a snake-in-the-grass bitch or your soulmate.

Which is another reason I'm starting to think the game is ready to come into port, the dev seems to be losing the plot a little bit and we're puttering in circles without going anywhere.

I can see why Rae would be a snake in the grass: she's a succubus and a Mata Hari-style spy who doesn't hesitate to use seduction and sex to achieve her goals. I can also understand her wanting to put that behind her and change her life. What I don't understand is why she should do so as a result of meeting the MC or becoming, a woman like her, the MC's soul mate.

For some reason, the dev has decided to make the MC of the game a plank of wood. He has no charisma, no personality, no charm. We don't know about his past nor does he have any special skills. He is “the chosen one” because for some reason (coincidence) he has a lot of "mana”, but he didn't even know it, and Rae has had to teach him everything. Also, basically his role in the game is to follow like a puppy dog the girls and do what they ask him to do. Zero initiative. He's a full Beta man. I don't know why someone like Rae who has lived hundreds of years and met thousands of people could notice a guy like MC. That's the main problem I see with this game: terrible MC. That, and as you say, the dev has long been walking in circles with the plot, and in my opinion, stuffing in tons of filler material.

 

[Pixillin']

I can see why Rae would be a snake in the grass: she's a succubus and a Mata Hari-style spy who doesn't hesitate to use seduction and sex to achieve her goals. I can also understand her wanting to put that behind her and change her life. What I don't understand is why she should do so as a result of meeting the MC or becoming, a woman like her, the MC's soul mate.

For some reason, the dev has decided to make the MC of the game a plank of wood. He has no charisma, no personality, no charm. We don't know about his past nor does he have any special skills. He is “the chosen one” because for some reason (coincidence) he has a lot of "mana”, but he didn't even know it, and Rae has had to teach him everything. Also, basically his role in the game is to follow like a puppy dog the girls and do what they ask him to do. Zero initiative. He's a full Beta man. I don't know why someone like Rae who has lived hundreds of years and met thousands of people could notice a guy like MC. That's the main problem I see with this game: terrible MC. That, and as you say, the dev has long been walking in circles with the plot, and in my opinion, stuffing in tons of filler material.

I think, narratively, it's because it's the first time she's ever been able to pause and have a normal life - hang out, watch tv, do a bit of travelling (including exploring a world where there is no magic and everyone has a fairly 'normal' existence.) It's the first time she's been able to pause and think about her life, and what she wants from it rather than just following orders and getting a new assignment when an old one finishes. I agree about the MC just being bland, although he does seem to have an almost instant rapport with Rae. And while I like some of the other Women (not all of them) - I think this would have been a better story if it was just MC and Rae - travelling through space and time and trying to figure out what happened and what to do about it - possibly meeting some others along the way and then letting them go. At least at this point, the other Lis stories do not seem tied to the main plot, they are kind of long, complicated side stories - though maybe that changes.

 

[Evil13]

I haven't played the last couple of updates

Then I suggest that you do play and catch up. You'll get a much clearer picture of the situation.

 

[Pixillin']

Then I suggest that you do play and catch up. You'll get a much clearer picture of the situation.

I did the rooftop conversation about her old life. Did something happen after that?

 

[sillyrobot]

I did the rooftop conversation about her old life. Did something happen after that?

Yeah, apparently (I haven't played the last couple of releases yet) there's a confrontation between Rae and the person she's been trying to contact with the MC's help.

In broad strokes and based upon what I read here, there are revelations that Rae is a racial supremacist who's been playing upon the emotions of the MC since she arrived. As typical, the scene ends before the MC can get a final conversation.

 

[Wakka00]

More fanart

Spoiler: A House in the Rift

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Lyriel is beautiful.

 

[Pixillin']

Yeah, apparently (I haven't played the last couple of releases yet) there's a confrontation between Rae and the person she's been trying to contact with the MC's help.

In broad strokes and based upon what I read here, there are revelations that Rae is a racial supremacist who's been playing upon the emotions of the MC since she arrived. As typical, the scene ends before the MC can get a final conversation.

Yeah, that's the part I played and it's not really that she's a racial supremacist. After the war they keep talking about, all of the men were executed and they were prevented from having full blooded male children. The order that Rae is apart of wants to create a male succubus (incubus?) to continue their race so that they don't die out. (And technically it would be species, not race.) So it's not like she wants to eradicate all of the other species - just keep hers from fading away. The rest of it sort of tracks though - she hasn't actually met the head of that order yet - unless it's happened in the last 2 or 3 updates. She met her old friend who she betrayed as part of that order. Edit: Also it would be wrong to say that she's been playing on the emotions of MC since she arrived - she did at first. She reacted the way she has been trained to when she didn't know who or what he was or anything about her new situation. but she says that it's not the case anymore and she wants to MC to come with her to meet the head of her order (because she can't go alone) - even though they definitely will not react well since he's an outsider and a human being brought before the head of their secret order - and she wants him to trust her. That was where I left off - she hasn't let him give her an answer yet.

 

[sillyrobot]

Yeah, that's the part I played and it's not really that she's a racial supremacist. After the war they keep talking about, all of the men were executed and they were prevented from having full blooded male children. The order that Rae is apart of wants to create a male succubus (incubus?) to continue their race so that they don't die out. (And technically it would be species, not race.) So it's not like she wants to eradicate all of the other species - just keep hers from fading away. The rest of it sort of tracks though - she hasn't actually met the head of that order yet - unless it's happened in the last 2 or 3 updates. She met her old friend who she betrayed as part of that order. Edit: Also it would be wrong to say that she's been playing on the emotions of MC since she arrived - she did at first. She reacted the way she has been trained to when she didn't know who or what he was or anything about her new situation. but she says that it's not the case anymore and she wants to MC to come with her to meet the head of her order (because she can't go alone) - even though they definitely will not react well since he's an outsider and a human being brought before the head of their secret order - and she wants him to trust her. That was where I left off - she hasn't let him give her an answer yet.

I misunderstood which rooftop conversation you were referencing -- I thought it was the rooftop of MC's Earth where Rae talks about her past.

I'm agnostic to Rae's situation as I haven't played the last couple of releases and probably won't for a couple more. That said, the problem with a confession after exposure is people have a rightful concern the confession is only performing damage control. "You discovered I did this thing you don't like in the past, but I swear I've changed! You can trust me now even though I hid this stuff from you and you only found out because I was exposed by another!" rings hollow. Broken trust may not be impossible to repair, but it is both a delicate and time-consuming process. Such loss of trust is often enough to turn a potential life-mate into someone fit for only for recreational use or abandoned entirely.

 

[Pixillin']

I misunderstood which rooftop conversation you were referencing -- I thought it was the rooftop of MC's Earth where Rae talks about her past.

I'm agnostic to Rae's situation as I haven't played the last couple of releases and probably won't for a couple more. That said, the problem with a confession after exposure is people have a rightful concern the confession is only performing damage control. "You discovered I did this thing you don't like in the past, but I swear I've changed! You can trust me now even though I hid this stuff from you and you only found out because I was exposed by another!" rings hollow. Broken trust may not be impossible to repair, but it is both a delicate and time-consuming process. Such loss of trust is often enough to turn a potential life-mate into someone fit for only for recreational use or abandoned entirely.

The reason trust is valuable in the first place is that it makes people give you the benefit of the doubt when it's not easy to do so. We'll see what happens, but I'll put all my chips on Rae coming through when it counts.

 

[johnsmith15379]

Yeah, that's the part I played and it's not really that she's a racial supremacist. After the war they keep talking about, all of the men were executed and they were prevented from having full blooded male children. The order that Rae is apart of wants to create a male succubus (incubus?) to continue their race so that they don't die out. (And technically it would be species, not race.) So it's not like she wants to eradicate all of the other species - just keep hers from fading away. The rest of it sort of tracks though - she hasn't actually met the head of that order yet - unless it's happened in the last 2 or 3 updates. She met her old friend who she betrayed as part of that order.

This is true. Rae says she is trying to save her race - whether you believe that or not is up to you. But there is a very good argument to be made that continuing to work with someone whom you know or suspect to be planning a genocide (or does not care about people being harmed) is just as culpable as the mastermind. I don't think we know if Lady M is the mastermind or not, but she seems to be Rae's "handler".

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I'm agnostic to Rae's situation as I haven't played the last couple of releases and probably won't for a couple more. That said, the problem with a confession after exposure is people have a rightful concern the confession is only performing damage control. "You discovered I did this thing you don't like in the past, but I swear I've changed! You can trust me now even though I hid this stuff from you and you only found out because I was exposed by another!" rings hollow. Broken trust may not be impossible to repair, but it is both a delicate and time-consuming process. Such loss of trust is often enough to turn a potential life-mate into someone fit for only for recreational use or abandoned entirely.

This lack (or destruction) of trust is mentioned as part of the conversations outside the library. I'm glad that it was mentioned at least, because I hope it gets addressed properly going forward.

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It will be interesting to see where the dev takes it after this. Unfortunately, since the story is railroaded except some small flavor text/choice, we'll have to go with what they think is best. I hope we would pull back from Rae until trust is rebuilt or something happens because I think that's the only reasonable response to this revelation. But I think most people would want the dev to wrap it up quickly because it's been going on for so long already.

 

[Pixillin']

This is true. Rae says she is trying to save her race - whether you believe that or not is up to you. But there is a very good argument to be made that continuing to work with someone whom you know or suspect to be planning a genocide (or does not care about people being harmed) is just as culpable as the mastermind. I don't think we know if Lady M is the mastermind or not, but she seems to be Rae's "handler".

Again, I don't think the phrase "planning a genocide" applies here. To the best of my knowledge she is trying to save her own race, not wipe out anyone else's. It's sort of the opposite of genocide. As for people being harmed, it's unfortunate but in a world of cloak and dagger high level politics, people getting hurt is par for the course. I tend to self-immerse in these things more than I should by from my POV, MC would be floating in the void without a clue about what was going on or why without Rae. Maybe Cait could have helped a bit, maybe but she definitely couldn't have taught MC to etherwalk or do things like summon the back yard into being. I don't even know if the rest of the cast could survive whatever is coming without Rae's guidance. So, I'll put all my chips on Rae coming through and if that results in some kind of bad end, so be it.

 

[johnsmith15379]

Again, I don't think the phrase "planning a genocide" applies here. To the best of my knowledge she is trying to save her own race, not wipe out anyone else's. It's sort of the opposite of genocide. ...

I don't know who you're referring to when you say "she". Rae or Lady M?
If you're referring to the latter, then she (or her masters) is certainly planning on something big and not caring who she hurts, especially if they're non-infernal.
If you're referring to Rae, then I don't think she's manipulating or planning anything anymore (she did have some sort of plans at the start). I would agree that Rae seems to want the best for her race, but she is not sure how far her actions should take her to accomplish that mission.
This scenario is the standard example of "does the end justify the means?". Is it moral to kill/injure x number of people to save y number of people? Some may think if y > x, then it's ok to do it. Some may think killing 1 person is too much.

Everyone in the house would be stuck without her, for sure. But how much does that absolve her of the evil/not-good actions (or reasonably foreseeable consequences of her actions) that she has done or plans on doing? As well as potentially involving everyone else in those plans now.

If I was MC, I'd be very cautious about doing things Rae wanted to do from this point onwards. Assuming that I believe Rae wants to save her race with minimal casualties, I'd have to wrestle with how my involvement would likely injure others (physical or otherwise), rather than potentially saving a race - there is no guarantee that MC intervening would change anything from what I've read in the current release. (Since the infernal situation was created by a world I didn't know existed, was initiated long before I was born, and seemingly has a long time to find another solution after I've gone)

I imagine the story will have Rae be "good" from now on, and they'll be a situation where she has to choose between this organization and MC/house, and she chooses MC. I wonder if the dev will have Rae tell the whole house about the situation and we'll see their reactions.

 

[KiraJames]

It's not "Friends" o "Seinfeld", it's not a group of characters living their lives and having a different story every week. There is a story that link them all, and personal plots and subplots for every character. If these plots are not resolved, what are they for?

Right now, this game is a bunch of filler material interrupted by unbearable cliffhangers. I do want to know once and for all what happens to Rae, and not have to wait another year to see if the dev decides to stop doing silly scenes about characters getting bigger boobs or changing size in dollhouses, and moves the plot forward for once.

But I like the filler? Do people like me not get a say in this? I know the main story is not really progressing at the rate you liked, but I really liked all the 'filler' that he puts out, I don't really care about the main story all that much tbh.

 

[TideT]

But I like the filler? Do people like me not get a say in this? I know the main story is not really progressing at the rate you liked, but I really liked all the 'filler' that he puts out, I don't really care about the main story all that much tbh.

I think people have PTSD from liking games but then they get abandoned and they don't get to see an ending. I can't see this game going that way Zanith and his team really seem all in on the game and I'd be shocked if they didn't finish it.

Not the first time I've thought that and been wrong though so I understand why people are getting a bit freaked out by the slow progression of the main story. I like all the content we're getting - "filler" and main story progress. That being said, I think the main story is progressing a bit slowly now though would like to see some issues get resolved (the peeking person who offered power, Lyriel's family & Naomi's crew feel like they've been in limbo for quite a while) more than I would like to see new issues presented.

 

[Evil13]

But I like the filler? Do people like me not get a say in this? I know the main story is not really progressing at the rate you liked, but I really liked all the 'filler' that he puts out, I don't really care about the main story all that much tbh.

There's filler, like when a planned scene is going to take more time to make than the developer might have expected, so they come up with something to keep interest. Those interested in the game know that the story will continue, it's just on hold for a while.

And then there's filler for the sake of filler, month after month. And you don't know whether or not the next update is going to continue the story.

And a lot of people feel we've been getting a lot of the latter.

 

[KiraJames]

I think people have PTSD from liking games but then they get abandoned and they don't get to see an ending. I can't see this game going that way Zanith and his team really seem all in on the game and I'd be shocked if they didn't finish it.

Not the first time I've thought that and been wrong though so I understand why people are getting a bit freaked out by the slow progression of the main story. I like all the content we're getting - "filler" and main story progress. That being said, I think the main story is progressing a bit slowly now though would like to see some issues get resolved (the peeking person who offered power, Lyriel's family & Naomi's crew feel like they've been in limbo for quite a while) more than I would like to see new issues presented.

You know what I agree with you, more Naomi and Rae would be good.

 

[KiraJames]

There's filler, like when a planned scene is going to take more time to make than the developer might have expected, so they come up with something to keep interest. Those interested in the game know that the story will continue, it's just on hold for a while.

And then there's filler for the sake of filler, month after month. And you don't know whether or not the next update is going to continue the story.

And a lot of people feel we've been getting a lot of the latter.

I personally don't agree with that, but I will admit I may be wrong and biased at that. I personally just don't like the doom and gloom in this thread.

 

[Dark479]

This game is so screwed up, I've got like 7 or 8 different evening events trying to auto-trigger over each other and I am literally never able to do the one I want to do. Cait wants to do a spooky dinner and get her glasses on the same evening, then there is Naomi who wants to go after her crew, and Rae then jumps in for some other random crap, and on by the way I am on an unspecified timer to progress the main story of the dwarf girl but she requires evenings too...and that's probably not all of it either. The entire game is completely fucked at this point.

 

[BigCosyStoryFan]

This game is so screwed up, I've got like 7 or 8 different evening events trying to auto-trigger over each other and I am literally never able to do the one I want to do.

This is a known issue. (Devs are aware of it.) From what I gather, they can't really fix it in a way that won't break some saves. (I can think of a few ways, but they're all complex and horrible.)

The only workaround for it is to basically exhaust everything before pushing on with the main story. Even then, you'll get some overlap if you progress in certain ways. My advice would be to advance the newest house member until they block, before picking up news ones, or moving on with the story. It's a hacky solution to a problem that stems from the game being years old and their assumption being that people will play it (unguided) as if it were being released to them.

The good news is that newer content gets better at it.

The bad news is that there are a host of 'legacy' triggers that you could trip over later.

I personally don't agree with that, but I will admit I may be wrong and biased at that. I personally just don't like the doom and gloom in this thread.

To throw in my two cents, I don't mind the 'filler' that much. I don't like the Lost and Found filler much, because it feels like those are all dead ends, but it's possible that all of that is part of lore building (to stop a plot hole later). But with that said, we get story progression every update. The issue is that people want specific stories advanced, and there's the main story, the 'find out about the main character' masked subplot/story, and every girl has their own primary story, as well as their own sex storyline.

We've stopped getting so much of the sex storyline stuff (I'm more than fine with that), and it has been replaced by generic filler (so it feels more scattershot). But the filler/sex content didn't really block the real story progression being released. So the issue is now that for one story to advance, others have to be at a point where it doesn't add to the existing story progression issues.

Rae's story releases had to come together (if you consider update sizes, it being split made sense). The problem with that release block is that a lot of people didn't care for/about the art (I'm 'didn't care about'), so it felt light on the written/spoken content in exchange for something that I could take a pass on. (I played a lot of VNs and AVNs back when animations were rare, or not even there, so I'd have been fine with more talking.) The other problem is that I feel the devs are taking a lot of feedback on story arcs, so the story is probably in flux. Though Rae's reveal was kind of a shrug for me, because most of it was obvious, and none of it changes how I read her character. (The only 'lie' was that we didn't save her when we pulled her into the house; she reverts her position on that. It may not have been a lie, she may only have pieced it together afterwards, and the way she originally phrased it may have been more a sign that she thought that she could handle herself.)

If we take the story progression and compare it to other games, we're getting a similar amount of content to other games with similar sized teams (when factoring time). The problem is, as before, the percentage of filler content to main content masks that, as, in other, more linear, games, the way it's slipstreamed in impacts it. On the whole, I shrug.