VN Ren'Py A Thousand Rounds [Prologue] [NME Artworks]

[Quetzzz]

I learned about this game on Reddit, and decided to give it a try.

There's a good foundation, but I don't think the dev is nailing it just yet. There are many examples of where we're told, but not shown things. The worst offender (IMO) has to do with characterization. The story moves incredibly fast and involves a time skip of several months. I'm still eager to see how the next chapter continues things because seeing how that chapter is handled will give me a better idea of what format the story will take. For the same reason, I won't post a review just yet. If I had to review this game right now, it'd be 3 stars on the account of gorgeous visuals.
This game can easily become a 4 or even 5-star (for me), if NME Artworks shows more of the main characters' personalities and characterization. I want to know what they're thinking, feeling, and what drives them to make their choices.

As I usually do, I wrote down my thoughts and impressions as I was playing through the game. Some thoughts or ideas will be entirely wrong, with the story providing the accurate answer. And it's always possible I misinterpreted, overthought or missed something.
As always, I'm happy to be corrected.

Spoiler: Chapter 1 play-by-play

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[jhonatanw]

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Hey everyone. I forgot what dev log it was so this is one plus the last. Lol. Anyways, as a matter of full transparency, which I said I would honor. This week wasn't very productive. Not in the current chapter at least. I did get some writing done, and some scenes are posed. But no rendering was done, because I spent almost all the free time I had outside of that working in Blender. It's been a goal of mine to move away from Daz for a long time, I just didn't know where to go. Each 3D software had their own issues importing Daz characters and it was so overwhelming I usually just gave up and moved on. But, that isn't the case anymore. I want so badly to get out of Daz for many reasons, and I've been draining every ounce of brain juice I have to learn this program and better understand what I need to do/how to make my characters and art better. Also, I just like Blenders UI and tools better. I miss Zbrush when working in Blender, but the sculpting tools are good enough AND I can sculpt on smoothed mesh rather than vertices and wire mesh. Anyways, I'm gushing a bit. Either way, starting tomorrow I'll get to finish posing the rest of the scene I was working on, and then render them all over a couple of days. I hope you all have a great week. To my followers, I'll catch you next week, and to my Patrons, you know where to find me.
Stay frosty,
NME

 

[jhonatanw]

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Hey everyone, hope you all have a great week. Good news is here. The intermission scene is finished. Rendered and postworked. I also spent the week fixing some old renders here and there that my team picked out from before. I've spent most of the weekend modeling a bar for the scenes to come. I've probably built and scrapped over a dozen designs. It's becoming a headache, but I'll get it.

The two branching paths for this update are pretty much the only chunky scenes left. All together we have the two branches, which are large scenes, and then an introduction to a special lady, another intermission, and then the ending is pretty much all that is left.
With the holidays, work, and traveling, this update feels like it's taking forever, but, then I look at dates and I don't feel too bad about it. The upcoming scenes are going to be a pleasure to make. Aside from the scenes themselves, there will of course need to be some cleanup and testing. There will be a lot of new code being implemented in this update so the testing phase will be a little longer than normal as myself and my team attempt to do whatever we can to break shit before release. No telling how much longer for everything, but of course, as usual, I'll keep you all updated in these weekly logs. For now, everything is going swimmingly (aside from this fucking bar, which makes me want to chew on lead).
Once I get a little more comfortable with the modeling tools and controls in Blender, I'm sure I'll make the environments easier but for now, it's the one big headache. Lol. I'll nail it down today, and if I can't seem to get it before the end of today, I'll just kitbash it with Daz assets like I've been doing and work on progressing my modeling skills on less important things. For now, that's all there is. I hope you guys have a great week. To my followers, I'll catch you next Sunday, and to my Patrons, you know where to find me.
Stay frosty,
NME

 

[jhonatanw]

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Hey everyone,
Shit was moving this week. It felt good. Felt like there were so many problems, and so little time the last couple of weeks. Made it hard to get into a groove. This week was solid though. The environment is completed, it's beautiful, and I've already begun posing the opening scene for the two branching scenes. I did have to go back and re-pose about 16 of them though, and here's why. I updated Daz, and I thought I got away unscathed, and I chalk it up to fatigue that I didn't catch it sooner, but one of the characters in the scene I was working on had her proportions dropped from 100% to 90% and I didn't notice until the scenes were rendered and I was postworking them. Then I realized, her model looked like a doll next to the MC. So I started to investigate and sure enough, there it was. She shrunk from 5'5" (165cm) all the way down (not just in height but body frame proportions) to 4'1"(124cm). It looked comical to say the least. So, had to load all the scenes she was in and fix her damn scale, which I don't understand how that would have happened anyways. It's fixed though and I'll be re-rendering those scene tonight with the new ones from today. Thankfully I noticed it though, because a few other characters had the same issue. But only some. It was weird. Thankfully, it seems like that was the only thing that got fucked in the update.

There is some big news on the code front, but I'll save that for a later log when I have some screenshots to share. Music is... music. A pain in the ass, through and through. As always, I'll figure it out. I think that's it for this week. Back to the grind. Hope you all have a great week. To my followers, I'll catch you next Sunday, and to my Patrons, you know where to find me.
Stay frosty,
NME

 

[jhonatanw]

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Hey everyone,
We got a late, and a short one today. Been a busy week. I'm almost done with both variations of the current scene. Then I'll be moving on to the branched scenes. I was having some creative issues with this scene that slowed me down, but I think I got it ironed out. Could also have been fatigue. Work really wrecked me this past week, but I got quite a bit done despite the hell week at work. Not too much else to report this time around. I'm sure there will be more to share next week, but for now that's all that went down this week. I'm tired as hell, and probably going to take my old ass to bed. You all have a great week. To my followers, I'll catch you next Sunday, and to my Patrons; you know where to find me.
Stay frosty,
NME

 

[jhonatanw]

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Hey everyone. Another quick update. Looking to get back to it and almost forgot about this. I didn't do an exact render count but I'm over 700 and moving. I am setting a deadline for myself to have the rest of the this update done because I do have another trip coming up and I want the release to be done BEFORE that happens. Like I said in other logs, this one is taking longer because there is a lot going on behind the scenes. Again, we are almost to a point where we will have some cool shit to show, but until then it'll just be me again saying, cool shit is happening. Besides that, the progress has picked up this last week, and the scenes I'm pumping out right now have been a lot of fun to make. I got a lot of writing done this week as well, which was really nice. I'm trying to look into ways I can be a better writer. My team, and all of you guys have said that my dialogue feels natural, and while I'm happy that's the case. I know there are shortcomings in my writing style that I know I can improve on and make an even more immersive and interesting story. That's it! You guys have a great week.
To my followers, I'll catch you next Sunday, and to my Patrons; you know where to find me.
Stay frosty,
NME

 

[jhonatanw]

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Hey everyone, I'm going to hit it early this week. It'll be a pretty short one. Things are moving nicely. The scene I'm working on is coming together pretty easily. I got a good bit of rendering done this week. I'd say I'm maybe half way through this branch, and then I'll hop to the other one rather seamlessly as the start of the second branch is actually an extension of the middle part of this branch. Lol. Not sure if that makes sense, but I don't know how else to say it and I haven't had coffee yet. Things are looking good on the story front.
For music, (man I really haven't been talking about this much) there was a dev I'd say is a pretty good friend at this point who shared a really invaluable resource to me regarding music. It's been so good. Lot's of music I can use in the background. While I haven't found any songs for major events on there, the background music selection is top tier. So, I still have a few songs I need to find for some important moments, as well as the ending, but the rest of the music is coming along nicely. Speaking of ending scene music, after stringing me along for months, the cunts over xyz corp denied my request to use their music. It would have been a lot less time wasted if they would have just told me no from the start. I don't want to get into it, but there were so many hoops, and positive talks, that to come around to the "no sorry we won't let our music be used in anything that has adult content in it" was a slap in the face and a huge waste of my time and energy. Why the fuck did I have to go through 4 different departments (including legal) to get that fucking answer? Anyways, as frustrating as that was, I'll press on and find an equally amazing song for the ending scene.
That's it for this log. I hope you all have a great week! To my followers, I'll catch you next Sunday and to my Patrons; you know where to find me.
Stay frosty,
NME

 

[jhonatanw]

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Hey everyone,
Another week is down, and pretty productive I'd say. Altogether I have about 73 renders posed and I only need about 6 more to conclude this part of the scene, which I intend to finish tonight. Then I'll render and spot check before moving on. I need to create two environments for the next branch as well find an environment needed as well. That'll go down tomorrow while the render queue pumps out the scenes.
I got a lot of writing done over the weekend. I'd say I'm about 85% done with the script. There is still quite a bit to be done in terms of programming and code cleanup, but that's a problem for future NME. I'll conclude it here, as I'm about to throw down on a double feature of Spanish horror. You all have a great week.
To my followers, I'll catch you next Sunday, and to my Patrons; you know where to find me.
Stay frosty,
NME

 

[tmu500]

I LIKE THE GAME THUS FAR,

 

[DevinHesi]

Ch 1.5 - Dev Log #21

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Hey everyone,

Another week down, and I've wrapped up this bar scene in it's entirety. Sort of. I mean it's all posed. I just need to finish rendering and postworking it. But I did a lot of Zbrushing in this scene so post work should be pretty straight forward. I also finished the next environment already, and I just need to do one more and then I can move on to the next scenes. It's been pretty hectic trying to squeeze in the dev time recently due to a radical restructuring at the company I work at. Hopefully it all settles down soon, but despite everything I've gotten a lot done this week. Probably more than I was able to get down the two weeks prior. So happy about that. The closer I get to buttoning up these remaining branch scenes, the closer we are to getting to the finale. I'd say that if I can keep up at least this level of work for it, I'll still hit the mark I want to hit. Anyways, super quick one this week. When things are running smoothly there really isn't a lot to report I guess.
Anyways, I hope you all have a great week. To my followers, I'll catch you next Sunday, and to my Patrons; you know where to find me.

Stay frosty,
NME

 

[DevinHesi]

Ch 1.5 - Dev Log #22

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Hey everyone,

Another successful week down. The render queue finished with what I had in it, and now for the rest of the day I'll be posing the last of Cammy's branch. They should be done some time tomorrow. We're nearing the close, and it feels good. I was hoping to be farther than I am, but what can you do? All in all, I'd say I'm about 85% done. There is still some code cleanup that needs to be done. Some code implementation, as well as quite a bit of testing this time around since we will be adding a little more complex programming. But if we get it right this time, then there won't be an issue with it later. I also still need to create some bonus renders and music.

On to other more business related news. I'm deciding to compile Ch 1 and 1.5 into a standalone entry and will essentially be renaming it as the prologue (which is what is was originally intended to be about 1500 renders ago). There are a couple reasons I'm doing this. One of the big ones is, the music I had licensed was from a company that no longer allows their music to be used in adult content. Since the prologue won't have any explicit sexual encounters, I can leave it as a standalone, and I won't have to get rid of any of the music (which was expensive as fuck). Secondly, it was always my plan to start locking the releases after this chapter to Patrons only. So, by creating the prologue as a standalone (I'll make sure the choices are still reflected in the core game upon release), I can keep that free for anyone to try.

That's about it this week. The next dev log I will have some screenshots to share, but there are a few things I want to clear up before pulling the trigger on it. I hope you all have a great week. To my followers, I'll catch you next Sunday; To my Patrons, you know where to find me.

Stay frosty,
NME

 

[DevinHesi]

Ch 1.5 - Dev Log #23

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Hey everyone,

The branch scene I was working on is done. Posed, rendered, postworked, and added to the engine. I have the two environments made that I need for the next branch. I'm hoping to have the whole next branch done this week, so I can move on to the finale by next week. But of course, we will see how the week plays out at work for me. Music is coming in nicely. I'm curating a pretty good soundtrack for this release. Combined with the songs from the first (both added and not), I'm pretty happy about them all. I think that's it for this week. Nothing else to report. I hope you all have a great week. To my followers; I'll catch you next Sunday. To my Patrons; You know where to find me.

Stay frosty,
NME

 

[DevinHesi]

 

[ラMr Shadow悪]

Tarakis' May Custom

 

[ラMr Shadow悪]

Ch 1.5 - Dev Log #25

Hey everyone. As you may notice, the dev log image has changed. Yep, you guessed it, it's a yellow card. So, I'm nearing the finale of the chapter, but not nearly as fast as I'd like. My day job is heavy right now, and has been the last few months. That's really inhibited my work on here, but I try and do at least something every day. Now, on top of all of this, there is a total UI overhaul and some other deep code that needs to be integrated, and then tested still before it goes off to Beta. So, I have decided that, since this has already taken much longer than I was hoping it would, I'm going to pause Patreon collection for June and resume once the game releases. My hope is that the code integration and testing goes smoothly, and that won't hang us up at all, but there is no telling since this is all new territory for us over here. I'm not talking about some Barney code shit either, and I'm excited for you all to learn what I mean by that, but for now, this is where we are at.

I understand that this might seem off-putting, but nothing else is changing other than the Patreon freeze. I'm doing this, because I value and appreciate the support you all give, and I'm not going to take advantage of that while we iron out all of this new shit. Thankfully, we only need to do it once. We get it right this time, and it's smooth sailing the rest of the way. Alright, the technical out of the way, we can do a quick update. This past week I got another 34 renders done. I have roughly another 60 or so to do to button up this scene. Then it'll be on to the finale. While I work on this, we will start to integrate and test the new UI and other code changes in a copy of the binary to troubleshoot along the way. I'm hoping the freeze will only need to be for June, but I won't commit to anything until I have, and preliminarily tested everything, and committing it to the beta binary.

Alright, that's all for this week. I hope you all have a great week. To my followers; I'll catch you next week. To my Patrons; you know where to find me.

Stay frosty,
NME

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[ラMr Shadow悪]

Ch 1.5 - Dev Log #26

Hey everyone. Just going to jump right in. It was a solid week. The scene is progressing really well. I should be on to the finale by next weekend. The new code has been added into a binary and is being tested, and so far, no issues have been found. We will continue this testing throughout the rest of the cycle. So far though, everything is looking good, so I've been told. Lol. I haven't gotten my hands on it yet, but I will soon. In terms of the numbers, I got another 34 renders done this past week. Very similar to the previous week. On top of that I also found some good music, got a lot of writing done, and already added everything to the script. That's it. I hope you all have a great week. To the my followers, I'll catch you next Sunday. To my Patrons; you know where to find me.

Stay frosty,
NME

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[Cloonesk]

I learned about this game on Reddit, and decided to give it a try.

There's a good foundation, but I don't think the dev is nailing it just yet. There are many examples of where we're told, but not shown things. The worst offender (IMO) has to do with characterization. The story moves incredibly fast and involves a time skip of several months. I'm still eager to see how the next chapter continues things because seeing how that chapter is handled will give me a better idea of what format the story will take. For the same reason, I won't post a review just yet. If I had to review this game right now, it'd be 3 stars on the account of gorgeous visuals.
This game can easily become a 4 or even 5-star (for me), if NME Artworks shows more of the main characters' personalities and characterization. I want to know what they're thinking, feeling, and what drives them to make their choices.

As I usually do, I wrote down my thoughts and impressions as I was playing through the game. Some thoughts or ideas will be entirely wrong, with the story providing the accurate answer. And it's always possible I misinterpreted, overthought or missed something.
As always, I'm happy to be corrected.

Spoiler: Chapter 1 play-by-play

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Interesting take, and I agree that there is room for improvement regarding the storytelling. However, remember it's just the prologue. The real story begins after.

 

[DevinHesi]

Ch 1.5 - Dev Log #26

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Alright, I'll get right to it again. The scene sadly was not buttoned up this week. I lost a couple days, one to work, and one to some development issues. I got it sorted for now, more of a band-aid really, but sorted nonetheless. I'm still about 40 renders out to finish this scene. Hopefully I can get it down before Tuesday. The goal is to start on the finale this week. Sadly, our lead tester managed to break the testing binary with all the new code really quickly. Our lead programmer is heading up the debugging as we speak. I'll touch base on where we are at with that in the next log.
For my Patrons, I'll have one more scene preview for you guys this week since I won't be sharing any for the finale. Also, I'll have that custom that was voted on out soon as well. I still haven't landed on a theme for it yet.
That's it for this log. I hope you all have a great week. To my followers, I'll catch you next Sunday. To my Patrons; you know where to find me.

Stay frosty,
NME

 

[Avatarbr1]

The story moves incredibly fast and involves a time skip of several months.

This can be good, so the relationships feels more natural, but you may skip a lot of important factors, like the MC already know the girls well, but for us (players), they are still unknown.

 

[ラMr Shadow悪]

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Hey everyone. Great news. I'll have the last of this scene rendered and postworked tonight. I'll test the binary which our lead programmer debugged. So far the testing has been good. If all the testing goes well, and I don't see anything else I need to change/edit/redo then I should have a beta out to the testers either tomorrow or Tuesday. While they hack away at it, I'll start working on the final scene of the chapter. I have a very clear vision of what needs to happen, just need to figure out how to do it without it coming out like tongue punching a shitty butt-hole. Lol.

The music is being a total nightmare. If there is anything that's going to stress me out nearing the release, it'll be the fucking music. Ugh...

Well, that's it for this log. Short and sweet. I hope you all have a great week. To my followers, I'll catch you next Sunday. To my Patrons; you know where to find me.

Stay frosty,
NME