VN Ren'Py A Wife and Mother [v0.201] [Lust & Passion]

[BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM]

So I've been noticing a bunch of games lately getting the "abandoned" tag on the front page. I don't know if it's happening more or if I'm just noticing it more, but it definitely has my attention. A comprehensive review could probably identify all of the warning signs for each game and find commonalities; but from what I'm seeing there are a couple very obvious related tell-tale signs that happen before the dev either disappears or the game is official canceled.

1. Irregular release dates
2. Increasingly long development cycles
3. OPTIONAL- Remake is announced

All of these games seemed to suffer from confusion as releases sputtered along at irregular intervals for years before the game was abandoned. No one ever really seemed to know when to expect the next release. Sometimes the dev would set a release date and make it, and sometimes they would miss it, but in both cases there didn't seem to be a far-out vision of when the next release should be ready. Instead, they all seemed to proceed on a "it's done when it's done" philosophy.

This made it harder to really criticize when development cycles began to creep up. Those irregular releases didn't seem to be a big deal when it was 45 days or 60 days between releases. Slowly but surely, those cycles became 75 day gaps, then 90 day gaps, then 150 day gaps, etc. These threads/Discords are full of "But the story/renders are more complicated, of course it's going to take longer", and that really grabbed my attention. The game keeps, slowly, coming out, and the clock starts again. But eventually the excuses begin to pileup and five or six months have passed and there's no word when the next release will be out. In some cases the dev just goes silent, and the game gets an automatic "abandoned" tag after three months.

Occasionally, all of the above will happen, but the dev will announce some sort of remake. While this doesn't happen often, it does seem to have a 100% failure rate. The dev will promise that the remake will fix some issues with the original game (could be code, render quality, story, whatever) and may even release an update or two starting the game over, but pretty quickly this seems to fizzle out.

The point is, I think there are some very clear tell-tale signs that we should be on the lookout for. I'm not trying to say that L&P is definitely going to abandon the game; I'm just saying that there are other games/developers out there that we should pay attention to. If I were still a Patron of L&P I think I would be asking him "Hey, game X, Y, and Z were all abandoned recently. What are you doing to make sure that AWAM doesn't end up in the same spot?"

Edit- I forgot to add that I think the post-COVID world is going to be tough on adult games. Devs that suddenly had more time on their hands in 2020, and saw a huge new captive audience willing to explore lewd games, may feel whiplash in 2021. As the world begins to open back up, we could see a really challenging situation as devs have less time on their hands to devote to games that have grown more complicated/time intensive than they were a year ago, while their audience begins to shrink as more people chose to spend their money/time in other ways. Suddenly this hobby isn't as much fun as it use to be, and also isn't as profitable. That could spell doom for a lot of games.

Well said

+ being completely dismissive of anything that could speed the game up
+ refusing to address the "if this kind of development continues, it will take 20 years to finish this, do you see yourself developing this for another 20 years?"
+ Only if you're blind you don't see what these certain 10% / 5% everyday increases are. Just made up numbers.

There's a reason for this game to not grow with other games out there in terms of earnings and rankings. People notice the lack of content between updates + a difficult dev who works slow and they won't support. Simple.

f95 needs a tag for when development starts slowing down so possible supporters are aware of what they're getting into. This is one of the biggest advertisement websites.

I suppose it's not worth discussing because the L&P is threatening to remove "hot content" from the future storyline of the game if we discuss a teaser here.

I think this is not correct, but let's respect the author and fulfill his request.

Not only is it not correct, it's also idiotic.
L&P is somehow under the impression that he is doing a favour to his patrons.

In my opinion, content shouldn't be measured only by the number of rendered images but also by the progression of the story (nb of hot scenes/update). Keeping that in mind, dividing in 3 the updates is for me the worse decision of this game.

Am I the only one to think that it was better before ?

I care about the quality/resolution of images and also about the degree of details, but such progress has drawbacks and again for me, we lost more than we gain.

I understand the vision of N&P, searching for perfection. I wanted to ask, as a Patreon member, I don't recall being question on this vision especially when he decided to divide the update into 3? Am I wrong?

Dividing into 3 was a nice idea but no one was going to predict that the dev would take the chance (again) to slow things up. There were 3 possible scenarios coming out of that decision.
1. Dev works the same rate: same story progression in a year but less waiting between updates.
2. Dev works faster: more story progression, less waiting between updates.
3. Dev works slower: less story progression, more waiting between updates.

Number 3 happened.

 

[Turret]

Here many say that 1200 renderers in half a year is a bad result. And you just try to verbally count to at least 1000. You can't: it's boring. And this is - renders, morphs, poses, emotions, light, clothing, writing dialogues ! Have a conscience

Hi! The problem is you just take the number, not the complete situation. If a total DAZ newbie like me with a normal Home-PC and severly curtailed free time for something llike this could churn out 1200 renders of decent quality in that timeframe, it would be praiseworthy.
L&P on the other hand has years of Experience with DAZ, earns money with his game and a better render rig, then 1200 renders in 6 months is near unacceptable. Some member posted that L&P´s averaged number of renders per day is 3-5, that is a bad joke for a developer, no matter the quality! For comparison, e.g. "Free Pass" and "Deliverance" are both made by 1 person "teams" too and they deliver (pardon the pun) quality render updates on a regular and feelable quicker schedule than L&P every made.

So yes, in the case of AWAM 1200 renders in half a year is simply a bad result.

 

[BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM]

Hi! The problem is you just take the number, not the complete situation. If a total DAZ newbie like me with a normal Home-PC and severly curtailed free time for something llike this could churn out 1200 renders of decent quality in that timeframe, it would be praiseworthy.
L&P on the other hand has years of Experience with DAZ, earns money with his game and a better render rig, then 1200 renders in 6 months is near unacceptable. Some member posted that L&P´s averaged number of renders per day is 3-5, that is a bad joke for a developer, no matter the quality! For comparison, e.g. "Free Pass" and "Deliverance" are both made by 1 person "teams" too and they deliver (pardon the pun) quality render updates on a regular and feelable quicker schedule than L&P every made.

So yes, in the case of AWAM 1200 renders in half a year is simply a bad result.

It's a terrible result. Less than 6 render per day on average. Unless he's making a new environment from scratch every week, for someone with his experience, it's just real bad compared to other devs out there.

 

[Rotenlulu]

I have a few hours played and I don't know yet if the game has sexual content. Are there sex scenes?

 

[Bane71]

I have a few hours played and I don't know yet if the game has sexual content. Are there sex scenes?

There is.

 

[TINTIN11]

Dividing into 3 was a nice idea but no one was going to predict that the dev would take the chance (again) to slow things up. There were 3 possible scenarios coming out of that decision.
1. Dev works the same rate: same story progression in a year but less waiting between updates.
2. Dev works faster: more story progression, less waiting between updates.
3. Dev works slower: less story progression, more waiting between updates.

Number 3 happened.

Oh, I think it was easily predictable. N&P is a perfectionist, I think the history of the game proves that he always tends to better quality, more details, more realism. The consequences are always the same, the story goes slower.

And, in my opinion, he needs to ask himself, if it's worth it and if there is an end to this research of perfection.

 

[Turret]

It's a terrible result. Less than 6 render per day on average. Unless he's making a new environment from scratch every week, for someone with his experience, it's just real bad compared to other devs out there.

Definitely and not even the quality of his renders makes it better, considering the quality of for example the stuff seen in "Free Pass". Just take a look at the sample pics for that game!
L&P seems to miss the fact that he is not one of the few Devs with really great artwork like two years ago any longer, the general level of the artwork in the genre has risen.

 

[Jibmeister]

I got it myself. Its lame af. Dylan and sophia wearing gym outfits coming home while ellie is about to leave. Thats all it is. Nothing worth paying 30 euro for

Was that Ellie or someone else?

 

[Jibmeister]

Going to post it here?

I personally dont mind posting it here but a few people have been advising me against it.

 

[BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM]

Oh, I think it was easily predictable. N&P is a perfectionist, I think the history of the game proves that he always tends to better quality, more details, more realism. The consequences are always the same, the story goes slower.

And, in my opinion, he needs to ask himself, if it's worth it and if there is an end to this research of perfection.

The talk of him being a perfectionist needs to stop. Not only there are errors in renders (which is completely normal) but the development cycle is riddled with imperfections. A perfectionist wouldnt let that slide.

 

[BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM]

Definitely and not even the quality of his renders makes it better, considering the quality of for example the stuff seen in "Free Pass". Just take a look at the sample pics for that game!
L&P seems to miss the fact that he is not one of the few Devs with really great artwork like two years ago any longer, the general level of the artwork in the genre has risen.

Exactly. There's even fan art from people who have 100x less hours in daz that are way above, in quality, than the art from the first half of this game, and that's fine.

Time moves on, hardware gets better and faster, software gets better, assets get better. Hence why it's stupid to lose 30% of rendering time by moving from 720p to 1080p. It won't matter in the end as he can just batch render the whole thing in 1080p or even 1440p in a farm whenever he feels like and release that without any work but to replace pictures and post on patron.
And for a game that is supposed to be developed in the next 20 years, who knows how these kind of games are in 5-10-15 years.

 

[BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM]

Decent Monkey boasts that he has 1000-1500 renderers per month and that the update will be on June 6 ! It would seem that checkmate. But in the next sentence, the Decent Monkey says that while he is on vacation, his assistants will continue to work ! And now the question: do you compare L&P alone to development teams ?

People have posted other devs out there who make 500-1000 renders in 8 weeks. DrPinkCake does 4000 + 40 animations in the same 6 months in a much more complex game (which he has to program etc).

If an average of 6 renders a day + translating 2 pages per day is good enough for you, that's ok, but trying to compare L&P to the majority of the devs out there regarding development speed is a losing game, for you.

L&P suposedly has the script written for this update, its 43 MSWord pages. It's moving 5% a day, that means 2 pages translated. Per day.

2 pages. Per day. From someone who says: I work 11 hours a day. Oh and he has help translating from "an american guy on discord", imagine if he hadn't.
Any translator would have done that in 2-3 days.

 

[Turret]

Decent Monkey boasts that he has 1000-1500 renderers per month and that the update will be on June 6 ! It would seem that checkmate. But in the next sentence, the Decent Monkey says that while he is on vacation, his assistants will continue to work ! And now the question: do you compare L&P alone to development teams ?

I cannot speak of others, but I specifically mentioned "Free Pass" and "Deliverance" for comparison, both games made by just one person as well. Both games have regular updates with quality artwork far quicker than AWAM. And they are not the only ones.

Exactly. There's even fan art from people who have 100x less hours in daz that are way above, in quality, than the art from half of this game, and that's fine.

Absolutely, there is amazing fanart out there.

 

[Jibmeister]

I suppose it's not worth discussing because the L&P is threatening to remove "hot content" from the future storyline of the game if we discuss a teaser here.

I think this is not correct, but let's respect the author and fulfill his request.

Is this even possible? Removing "hot content" will be adversely affecting his game.

 

[Alley_Cat]

I cannot speak of others, but I specifically mentioned "Free Pass" and "Deliverance" for comparison, both games made by just one person as well. Both games have regular updates with quality artwork far quicker than AWAM. And they are not the only ones.

Absolutely, there is amazing fanart out there.

Free Pass has two devs. After Choices and Stella, who does a lot of the scriptwork and the voice-acting.

 

[t3alqdansam]

probably an oversight since no one uses SubscribeStar

Now Ginger thinks I am "No one".

 

[Turret]

Is this even possible? Removing "hot content" will be adversely affecting his game.

Not only that, a cynical person would say "what hot content"? His so called "hot" teasers are the heights of stuff you could include in the Sesame Street, completely harmless especially seen from a German perspective. Fracking afternoon shows on German TV are hotter than this "hot" overpriced drivel L&P considers hot teasers!
As for hot scenes in AWAM proper, there are few and more important, they are borderline harmless too. Sometimes I think L&P considers Vanilla Sex close to Deviancy with his primadonna posts.

Free Pass has two devs. After Choices and Stella, who does a lot of the scriptwork and the voice-acting.

Thanks you for the correction! But since we discussed the render artwork, we could still include Free Pass, since it is done by AfterChoices alone. Script and VA is important too, but even then Free Pass´ artwork is done quicker than AWAMs.

 

[Bane71]

Is this even possible? Removing "hot content" will be adversely affecting his game.

We all see that L&P stands out somewhat from other developers, so I think he can do it.

Therefore, I hope that everyone will comply with the L&P requirement.

But I also think that it would be very wrong of him if this happens. And first of all, the game itself will suffer.

With an approach like that of L&P, he needs to be careful when choosing his previews, and not put forward such requirements.

 

[tigers]

Was that Ellie or someone else?

Elie

 

[tigers]

I suppose it's not worth discussing because the L&P is threatening to remove "hot content" from the future storyline of the game if we discuss a teaser here.

I think this is not correct, but let's respect the author and fulfill his request.

No, he simply stated that he will not post 'hot teasers' if this is leaked. First, the teaser isnt hot. Its meh.
Second, he cant remove 'hot content' from his game since it will diminish the game's quality, he only said he will not post teasers.