Public post from HC's patreon page.
A Promise Best Left Unkept - Aya Edition V0.1.0 - Hangover (10$) Tier (5 days Exclusivity)
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Here we go again! We’re back for more A Promise Best Left Unkept… woohoo~…
If it isn't obvious already, I don't really know how to preface this. I guess by explaining what this project is about. For those who don't know, A Promise Best Left Unkept was completed last month and released on Steam this month. But it might be confusing since we're back with more of it this month instead of a completely new project. That's because last month was only the completion of Laura's route. Now we're doing the same game, but with Aya as our main heroine. What that means is that, at a certain point early in the game, Harry will be doing something different than what he did in the original version, and this will lead to a drastically different outcome.
For the specifications: the update adds 15.5k~ words of new content, with 2 new sex scenes and 5 new CG sets. The entire beginning of the game (probably 50k words) is still there, for those who haven't played the original game, or simply want to re-read it.
For those who don't want to read it again though, and don't want to skip through it, there's now an option in the extra section of the game to jump to specific versions of the game. Since it's the first version, you can only jump to V0.1.0, but when V0.2.0 comes out, you will be able to jump to the new content from that menu directly.
Another change is the Scene Replay menu. Now you can choose Harry in the menu. Meaning that every scene involving Harry will be found under him. Also, if there are any memorable moments where Harry witnesses scenes indirectly or partially (mystery perspective), those might be found under him as well.
As mentioned previously, this update starts things slow. In fact, Aya's route in and of itself is slow. I have mixed feelings about lots and lots of things. Her route will either be a huge failure or a great success. Just… expect it to be a fairly long ride.
Once again, if there are quality-of-life changes that you want to see in the game, you can still bring them to my attention. I want to create a quality product, but since it's essentially the 'same' game, a lot of things are the same.
I do plan to add a few custom music that I commissioned over the past months. There are no new music pieces in this particular update, but expect a few in the next one.
As always, love you guys. Stay safe.
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Changelog V0.1.0
Menu
Story
- Added a Jump To Version feature
- Changed the Replay Menu to incorporate Harry's perspective
- Added 5 CG sets
- Added 2 sex scene
- Added 15.5k words to the story
- Thread starter HangoverCat
- Start date
- Sep 22, 2018
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Wait a min....the author actually said that?That's definitely not encouraging.Aya is my favorite character so far and if the author is that cavalier about one of his own established characters then i guess it's time to scoot.
I just dropped 25$ on steam to show support for the author,this was done well with varied endings.Since Aya's part of the story is separate anyway,i guess i can just forget it exists if the Aya's part of the story completely destroys her previously established character or that part of the story as a whole is not satisfactory.
- Jul 20, 2018
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The exact quote is:Wait a min....the author actually said that?That's definitely not encouraging.Aya is my favorite character so far and if the author is that cavalier about one of his own established characters then i guess it's time to scoot.
I just dropped 25$ on steam to show support for the author,this was done well with varied endings.Since Aya's part of the story is separate anyway,i guess i can just forget it exists if the Aya's part of the story completely destroys her previously established character or that part of the story as a whole is not satisfactory.
" She will fall. I promise you she will… even if I need to use bad writing to do so. "
It's from
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on Patreon, if anyone wants to check, though you obviously need to be a patron to see it. It's a long post though, and there's a whole talk about Aya and her incompatibility with the NTR genre and so on.The thing is... It's less that H-self is cavalier about their character, and more that it's what their paying customers might want... and at the end of the day, it's his income at stake. If peeps want Aya to fall no matter what, then he's gonna make her fall to the dick so the money keeps on coming.
There's a poll on his Patreon about the favorite endings too.
You know which ones were the top two? Fallen Hero Ending, top 1. Family Ending, Top 2. Aka the endings where Laura fell the hardest were the favorites of the patrons. And by a landslide. Fallen Hero got 87 votes. Family got 53. The third in line is at only 35 votes, the Fallen Hero, Aya ending (the one where Harry gets to join the Yakuza and NTR Sandra from Laura, basically. If you can count that as NTR anyway...).
Basically, the content that the Patrons are MOST interested in is the one where the girls fall to Luca... and so the push will be for Aya's route to have that too, no matter how absurd it seems with her personality and whatnot.
I definitely expect that I'll need to turn off a lot more of my brain for that one when it's finally done.
He did say that he was going to take his time with it and do all he can for it to make sense... but at the same time, he's honest in saying that Aya falling might just not be that good because of who and what she is.
At the very least, we'll get to see a lot of her muchly vaunted ass bouncing on dick. So for me, that's good.
- May 17, 2022
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I totally agree. Harry is a flawed character I get it but would love to see a Revenge-NTR ending at this point.
I even tried to find some revenge-ntr hentai and to my surprise found some.
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Love to see an ending where Laura is fallen and ends up with a relation with Harry but still keeps fucking Luca thinking he won't do anything or find out about them but Harry not only finds out but also get revenge on them.
- Sep 22, 2018
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I guess it's HC's own fault for writing her into a corner i guess.She was way too good compared to the others,maybe HC should have thought about making Harry a little better and Aya have more weaknesses,which certainly would have opened up more possibilities without having to retcon her character.
I know for most creators patreon patrons are the highest form of income and have to cater to them but i do sometimes wonder if the NTR creators are restricting themselves to a shorter user base thinking they can't attract more of mainstream audience.
One thing i have noticed from steam for some popular NTR games is people wishing to have a good ending or 2. Dark hero party for example had a lot of people wishing for atleast one good ending. In my opinion,the author shot himself in the foot by insisting on not having a good ending and trying to explain it was for story reasons to show how this particular world was cruel.
I am just glad that HC didn't do that for this VN and had varied endings,even if most of his patrons wanted it or not which was my main reason for giving this VN my support while i didn't for his previous work.I just wish PBLUK had Power Vacuum style bonus scenes instead of the current ones we got which feels more of the same tbh.
- Sep 22, 2018
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Whenever this point is brought up there is always some people that go "LOL,this is a NTR game/VN if you don't like NTR why are you playing it?",as if a NTR game/VN can't have both with the amount of options available.The harder the betrayal the sweeter a good revenge ending would feel,but still i wouldn't expect MC from a HC VN/game to ever do that.HC only writes weak male MC's IIRC(not 100% sure so i am willing to be proven wrong).Even in a mainstream VN he did before he had a weak MC.I am not at all surprised that any type of revenge happened only because of Aya.
- Jul 20, 2018
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As someone who's done writing for various reasons myself, I know from personal experience how a character can take up their own life in your head and do their own thing that's different from what you originally intended. The line between creativity and insanity is a very thin one at the end of the day.
Either way, it's not that Aya doesn't have weaknesses. She has plenty of those... No, the issue is that Aya isn't really compatible with NTR. The NTR genre, at the end of the day, requires a certain level of... weakness and stupidity, for lack of a better way of describing it, on the part of the person that's being taken away. Laura is a good example of that. She's a super repressed closet nympho and her confidence is a mask meant to hide her insecurities and imperfections. For NTR to work, the girl that's taken away needs to be able to be fall to the D, unless there's some magic/super-science bullshit going on to help things along.
Aya's whole personality screams that even if she'd become a sex-addict, she'd choose herself who she'd be involved with, and that she's smart enough to understand that Luca's not the end all, be all of getting a fun sex life.
Which means that, the path to her fall is likely going to be, to an extent, a rehash of Laura's... in the sense that it will likely require Harry to fuck-up to the point of mega-cringe... and much harder than anything that happened with Laura. With Laura, plenty of the blame fell on her too, not just Harry's idiocy, but with Aya, that's likely not gonna work. Given that Aya, in the original VN seems to genuinely understand Harry and his imperfections, and is willing to take the whole package as is... he'll need to do something really bad for things to degenerate that much.
Either way... I personally expect a lot of cringe. I expect that Aya's route will have plenty of delicious smut... but that the overall story will be a downgrade from APBLU.
Yeah, Aya/Harry's characters are in a bit of a hole if we want the same type of NTR to work. One viable route HC could take is voluntary NTR on the part of Aya/Harry (or Netorase).
Aya has a strong personality, but both Laura and Harry have very weak personalities. This is what Luca would exploit. (Also clarification before my example, haven't played .1 of new Aya update, and been awhile since I've started just gallery skimming Laura updates.)
Rough example scenario:
(Aya/Harry are now together, and Harry broke up w/ Laura. Luca takes initiative to 'repair' relationship with Harry, while trying to look for weaknesses.)
- Harry starts receiving various explicit videos. Starts w/ regular porn, then over time shifts into bull/cuck porn.
- Luca mentions receiving the same videos in the office, tries to convince him to keep watching. At the same time, Luca tells Aya that Harry may have 'fetishes' that he won't reveal to her.
- If Harry continues watching Aya catches him, plants a seed of doubt.
- She talks about it with Luca, and Luca tells her they can continue testing him. Maybe give him a gift to show that she doesn't mind. Aya shuts him down, saying she won't do anything with him. Luca backpedals, saying they can use a substitute, ease him into it, and suggests using Laura.
- Luca seduces Laura, and records videos for Harry using her, but w/ Aya involved (maybe over the phone at the start, then in person later.) Aya sees that Harry is watching/jacking off to the videos, so she continues.
- Dress up Laura as Aya, do more explicit 'pretend NTR video'.
- They take a break. Maybe choice here could be Harry stops cold turkey, or picks back up jerking off to NTR vids.
- Aya catches him again. Convinced that this is what he wants, SHE decides to work w/ Luca again to record gift for their anniversary (or some other holiday).
- Balls in Luca's court now and he wants to escalate between him and her, leaving Laura out of it.
- Eventually continue into real sexual contact between Luca/Aya based on how Harry messes up/any exploits Luca finds over time.
- As Harry continues watching videos, starts getting suspicious. (Whether he acts on his suspicions could lead to different endings.)
Obviously, this scenario wouldn't be perfect and I'm probably forgetting some plot details that would leave gaping plot holes, but I do think following the same path where Aya is treated as weak as Laura will lead to some very unsatisfying paths.
Aya has a strong personality, but both Laura and Harry have very weak personalities. This is what Luca would exploit. (Also clarification before my example, haven't played .1 of new Aya update, and been awhile since I've started just gallery skimming Laura updates.)
Rough example scenario:
(Aya/Harry are now together, and Harry broke up w/ Laura. Luca takes initiative to 'repair' relationship with Harry, while trying to look for weaknesses.)
- Harry starts receiving various explicit videos. Starts w/ regular porn, then over time shifts into bull/cuck porn.
- Luca mentions receiving the same videos in the office, tries to convince him to keep watching. At the same time, Luca tells Aya that Harry may have 'fetishes' that he won't reveal to her.
- If Harry continues watching Aya catches him, plants a seed of doubt.
- She talks about it with Luca, and Luca tells her they can continue testing him. Maybe give him a gift to show that she doesn't mind. Aya shuts him down, saying she won't do anything with him. Luca backpedals, saying they can use a substitute, ease him into it, and suggests using Laura.
- Luca seduces Laura, and records videos for Harry using her, but w/ Aya involved (maybe over the phone at the start, then in person later.) Aya sees that Harry is watching/jacking off to the videos, so she continues.
- Dress up Laura as Aya, do more explicit 'pretend NTR video'.
- They take a break. Maybe choice here could be Harry stops cold turkey, or picks back up jerking off to NTR vids.
- Aya catches him again. Convinced that this is what he wants, SHE decides to work w/ Luca again to record gift for their anniversary (or some other holiday).
- Balls in Luca's court now and he wants to escalate between him and her, leaving Laura out of it.
- Eventually continue into real sexual contact between Luca/Aya based on how Harry messes up/any exploits Luca finds over time.
- As Harry continues watching videos, starts getting suspicious. (Whether he acts on his suspicions could lead to different endings.)
Obviously, this scenario wouldn't be perfect and I'm probably forgetting some plot details that would leave gaping plot holes, but I do think following the same path where Aya is treated as weak as Laura will lead to some very unsatisfying paths.
- Jul 20, 2018
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Nah, that wouldn't work.
Harry's love for Laura that at times crosses into outright obsession is, if anything, one of the things that makes the Aya route even harder to make.
In the original VN, he kept trying to stay with Laura to the point of utter stupidity on more than one occasion, and it's not hard to say that this is part of his willing ignorance issue that manifests especially strongly during the real NTR endings where Aya doesn't get to interfere.
I haven't touched the newest Aya thing either, and I won't really bother with the WIPs for the most part... but from what people on H-self's Discord were saying, the start of the Aya 'route' involves Aya pretty much outright raping Harry to get things going in a different direction. Which, on the one hand, is fitting for a psycho-girlfriend type... On the other hand, I'm not sure if it works for what H-self intends to achieve.
Hell, Harry and Laura breaking up sooner wouldn't work all that well for the whole thing, because the sooner Laura's out of the picture, the sooner Aya has no competition and thus no reason to even look Luca's way. If he tried the blackmail thing on her, she'd give him the middle finger if she stays in her established character. She knows how that shit works.
My suspicion is that Hself is going to leverage that other person that Aya loves, the one she mentions in her path in the current VN, the one she loved before Harry and the only one she thought that she could love at all. My money is on Luca finding out about who this is, probably a sister figure if not an outright sister, and things degenerating from there somehow.
Though I can't think of a good way for that to happen without Aya simply brutally murdering Luca outright... Which is the big problem with Aya. Unlike Laura, Aya always has the murder option if things get too far, and I can't see a genuinely good way to avoid Aya putting on the breaks on things with good ol' murder.
Harry's love for Laura that at times crosses into outright obsession is, if anything, one of the things that makes the Aya route even harder to make.
In the original VN, he kept trying to stay with Laura to the point of utter stupidity on more than one occasion, and it's not hard to say that this is part of his willing ignorance issue that manifests especially strongly during the real NTR endings where Aya doesn't get to interfere.
I haven't touched the newest Aya thing either, and I won't really bother with the WIPs for the most part... but from what people on H-self's Discord were saying, the start of the Aya 'route' involves Aya pretty much outright raping Harry to get things going in a different direction. Which, on the one hand, is fitting for a psycho-girlfriend type... On the other hand, I'm not sure if it works for what H-self intends to achieve.
Hell, Harry and Laura breaking up sooner wouldn't work all that well for the whole thing, because the sooner Laura's out of the picture, the sooner Aya has no competition and thus no reason to even look Luca's way. If he tried the blackmail thing on her, she'd give him the middle finger if she stays in her established character. She knows how that shit works.
My suspicion is that Hself is going to leverage that other person that Aya loves, the one she mentions in her path in the current VN, the one she loved before Harry and the only one she thought that she could love at all. My money is on Luca finding out about who this is, probably a sister figure if not an outright sister, and things degenerating from there somehow.
Though I can't think of a good way for that to happen without Aya simply brutally murdering Luca outright... Which is the big problem with Aya. Unlike Laura, Aya always has the murder option if things get too far, and I can't see a genuinely good way to avoid Aya putting on the breaks on things with good ol' murder.
- Jan 15, 2019
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Personally the only way Aya could be NTR'd in my view is if Luca falls in love with her. This would take care of the issue of Aya realizing that Luca will merely throw her away when he is done and will feed two of Aya's desires. That being her desire for book or story 'love' and her suppressed desire to be sadistic and animalistic. Basically for Aya to realize that being married to Luca as the head of crime world is what she wants and was born to be. Naturally its up the creator to communicate it in a nicely paced and believable manner but that is the only way I can see it happening.
Can anyone give me the summary what happened in the current update please, my brain got blasted by reading all of the essays in the name of comments
- Sep 22, 2018
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I just meant she doesn't have weaknesses in the sense that she is not a dumb pushover.Yeah,you are right.Aya is pretty much incompatible with NTR. Heck,i wouldn't even mind if we just get a couple of bad endings all happening because of miscommunication and misunderstandings but getting other endings as happy endings. I would prefer that over butchering of her character tbh.But i guess most others playing this are the complete opposite and would prefer butchering her character for the sake of NTR over preserving her character.
I also disagree with the last part. I have read some NTR stories where the end reason for the girl falling ended up being the emotional connection over good sex,even though it started out with sex.
- Jul 20, 2018
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I honestly can't say what people exactly think about Aya. There's an apparent trend when it comes to the preferences for endings... but that doesn't necessarily mean anything in regards to Aya specifically, given that people do seem to like her in general, even if they don't like her endings as much as the fucked up NTR ones. Now, whether this means they like her character or that they just like her big butt... that's another question entirely.
At the end of the day, H-Self won't be able to please everyone no matter what he does.
As for NTR where the one taken away genuinely falls in love with the one taking them away... I suppose it's debatable. Generally, for that to work, there needs to be something massively wrong in the original relationship beyond just the limits of physical compatibility. In some ways, H-Self's previous work, Edge Of, kind of falls into this, as the original relationship was heavily messed up and the girl started having feelings for the guy intending to steal her even before he started fucking her simply because he respected her as a woman and a human being with thoughts and feelings of her own.
That said, it's the only partial example I've personally seen, and I genuinely can't see it happening without serious issues being involved in the starting relationship.
Laura's route is finished.Can anyone give me the summary what happened in the current update please, my brain got blasted by reading all of the essays in the name of comments
5 bad endings, 5 'good' ones.
Next update would be DLC and the start of Aya's route (she already have a small amount of sex content in the Laura's route though).
That means the new is not out, and here I think the aya route's first update is live
There is a poll going on right now on HC's patreon called "Meaningful Poll: Should Aya's route have a good ending?" and i wonder what the options are and which one is winning.
- Jul 20, 2018
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55% of the votes are yes for a good ending. The option is literally "Yes, she deserves a good ending."
45% of the votes are no for the good ending. The option is literally "No, she only deserves Luca's dick."
That said, based on the post, H-Self doesn't really WANT to write a good ending... much like they didn't want to write a good ending for the original APBLU. It genuinely shows in the writing that he didn't want to write that ending, so I'm personally voting for no because I'm not into forcing people to write things that they don't really feel.
That said... Each tier has different voting power. So it's not just a matter of the most votes for an option, but also for the most votes from the higher tiers.
So keep that in mind. H-Self has access to that info, but the patrons do not.
- Sep 22, 2018
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Yeah,that was so low effort that it felt like it was just added to give an additional ending.My assessment of HC so far is that he really hates writing good endings and hates giving MC any agency like he is allergic to it.This time around,i feel like he might just ignore the polls even if yes for good ending gets more votes.Is there any info on how long the Aya's route is planned to be?I am wondering if it's going to be a short one or will be as long as Laura's route.