Ren'Py Acardia Afterdark: Thrones of Desire [v0.20] [Unknown White Raven]

4.00 star(s) 3 Votes

db-bchr-iv

Newbie
Mar 12, 2023
62
137
Three out of three 5*/5* reviews for a VN with AI CG, dayum, what's going on here, will download for sure
The reviews are ridiculous and the game isn't that good. "Disco Elysium but in my favorite setting?" Give me a fucking break, this has nothing to do with DE. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the dev manipulating the rating himself.

Either way, someone needs to humble this game's rating a bit. Myself to the rescue I guess.
 
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Unknown White Raven

Newbie
Game Developer
Sep 3, 2024
20
39
The reviews are ridiculous and the game isn't that good. "Disco Elysium but in my favorite setting?" Give me a fucking break, this has nothing to do with DE. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the dev manipulating the rating himself.

Either way, someone needs to humble this game's rating a bit. Myself to the rescue I guess.
I mean everyone has different tastes so they might have liked what you did not. It is certainly within possibility I would say.
And no there is no 'manipulation' going on.
But man, why the anger, I mean this is just a small game that is in its very start phase. It has room to change and grow.
Thank you anyways for not leaving a 1 star review considering the hatred you have for this game.
 

Riggedbound

Newbie
Jul 25, 2024
26
57
The reviews are ridiculous and the game isn't that good. "Disco Elysium but in my favorite setting?" Give me a fucking break, this has nothing to do with DE. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the dev manipulating the rating himself.
It kinda has something similar to DE though. I won't review the game myself since it feels like a demo, basically, but I liked its idea and dialogues. I'd even say, really liked.
 
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Unknown White Raven

Newbie
Game Developer
Sep 3, 2024
20
39
It kinda has something similar to DE though. I won't review the game myself since it feels like a demo, basically, but I liked its idea and dialogues. I'd even say, really liked.
Thank you.
If possible, could you tell us how long it took you to finish the content. We are trying to get a general estimate.
 

Sality

New Member
Sep 2, 2017
12
19
When I see another game made with Ren'Py, I always die inside, cause of all the shitty stuff people "try" to make just to grab money from other people (basically just shitty models made in koikatsu or looking decent but stolen, no effort). So I mostly avoid any Ren'Py stuff. But I decided to give this one a try, since it didn't look like another koikatsu-like shit.

Aaand we get isekai-ed. And I laughed a lot at this one:
obraz_2025-01-09_184442606.png

I must say, I did enjoy it. I like the mechanics, I like the style, so far so good. Interestingly enough - I got this while visiting the shop.
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Looking forward to this one.
 

youraccount69

Forum Fanatic
Donor
Dec 30, 2020
4,219
1,951
AcardiaAfterdarkThronesOfDesire-0.19
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Nimbus Commando

Active Member
Aug 7, 2024
517
1,155
Played it through. Things that could be changed for better, in my humble opinion:
1. As said before —"choiceless" choises: fight with bear, Evelyn scene.
Bear — that "fight" description wasn't even needed, because the choice in its core is "to end the game" and player only wastes time. You don't wan't players to waste their time, you want them to spend it with pleasure.
Suggestion: rock-paper-scissors fight system. You have description of bear's attack and choices with side to evade to. Make decreasing reaction time-line (like in QTE moments in the game "Wolf Among Us") so it feels more intense. Give character for example 3 or 2 HP, i.e. small room for error. And story wise, when after few evade-sequences, when the Principle arrives, it will make more sense that he feels / sees potential in MH — he survived encounter with a magic beast. I beg you not to make MH "The Chosen One" without him actually doing surprising things and earning and proving that status from THE GOD himself. Also you could do "Run" choice likewise, make player choose where to run, i.e. think fast and click fast, he shouuld feel intense, because the situation IS intentese.
Evelyn — two choices leading to the exacts same dialog, i.e. event sequence, when in a good written story different choices should matter and should create at least small and different story-branches or different ways to the main point (in global story or relations-between-characters-story).
Suggestion: think through your characters' personality first, then play the interaction in your head as MH and as the character. It might help you understand how they will interact irl, lol. And then build your dialog choices. Also, if you want RP here, give MH varying personality choices, decide, for example 3 routes "Cool kid", "Kind guy" or "Shut-in nerd" that will affect other characters as well. He was dissapointed with his high school life and university was his "new life starting" moment, make your story matter, you can play it out like this here, it's his new life, literally, he can be whatever he wants now and more players may bond stronger with him if they can choose what they like, don't decide for players, make them decide for themselves.

2. Useless descriptions
Why do you need to describe me a character's apperance if I can see her/his picture and see how she/he looks like. It may work in book, but not in the game, you have visual channel of perception here, consider this, please. Demoness' description was literally description of her art, which I can see with my own eyes. This is a problem, because player will think that the writer is bad or that the writer thinks, that the player is blind or stupid. If you want to describe a character, describe those parts that we can't see, actions or gestures (if you won't animatethem), small body movements ("her chest rapidly goes up and down from excitement" or smthng like this). Everything except what we can actually see on the screen, because it's needless.

3. Minigames
As Jesse Schell said in his book "The art of game design", game has 4 elements: story, style, technology and mechanics. And they must support and complete each other. First decide what mechanics, simply said minigames will be used for different routes (warrior, mage, priest), make them from paper and play test it, you will se how it works and if it's actually interesting. Second, decide how it will loook, i.e. style. Magic-shooting training with archer-targets look not so good, imho. Also don't forget about story, because throwing minigame at player immediately after he clicks "go to lecture" without any explanation (thanks to warrior classes for having at least key-pressing tutorial) and seeing how MH then says "I learned a lot about magic today" feels very incoherent. We need to understand as a player why are we doing those arrows or clicking those targets.

4. Another "The Chosen" guy
I mentioned it above and want to emphasize — please, don't make character just "The Chosen" and so that he then gain everything just because God said that he is "special". Youshould prove it to us readers/players through his story, character development and actions. Don't turn your story into another stereotyped isekai anime, please, I beg you (I can forgive you that truck in the beginning, ok, it's sort of a meme at this point). And I know it's demo and story didn't even started so to speak, but I am looking a few steps ahead.

5. Priest minigame where? XD
- - - - -
I mixed everything a little but that's it.
I'm not trying to offence you, guys. You did not bad for beginners (as I understood), but there is a lot to learn and improve. Don't be lazy about searching info and improve your skills. There are a lot of videos on writing stories, characters and gamedesing on Youtube, it's free, use it wisely.
Also remember: it is good when people critisize your work (except some woke bs), because complaining — is caring. The thing is dead when nobody cares.
And I hope you're not trying to make some cash from patreon and then leave with abandoned 0.0.3v game. Don't be like this, please.
Best regards.
Rather play as the chosen one than some weak ass pussy.
 
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iamsensei

New Member
Feb 17, 2024
13
21
Yeah sorry we are quite new to these things so we were not able to write a good description. We will fix it along with the thumbnail, in a new update in probably 2 weeks. Thank you for your suggestion.
the plot and the mechanics are wonderful, keep going.

and i would be really happy if you improve H-scenes by adding interactionand sounds, in future versions of course. good luck in development
 
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Unknown White Raven

Newbie
Game Developer
Sep 3, 2024
20
39
the plot and the mechanics are wonderful, keep going.

and i would be really happy if you improve H-scenes by adding interactionand sounds, in future versions of course. good luck in development
Thank you, we are glad you liked it.
Little by little we will keep improving the game.
 
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May 11, 2019
16
10
don't agree with the criticism of the bear choice. Pleasure can be higher if there's some build-up to get it and if the world of arcadia is supposed to be dangerous than having choices with death as a consequence. The question is whether the choice establishes something or uses something established. Are there types of animals you need to run from vs stand your ground vs?
 

ShadowAsgard

New Member
Jul 16, 2023
3
5
I mean everyone has different tastes so they might have liked what you did not. It is certainly within possibility I would say.
And no there is no 'manipulation' going on.
But man, why the anger, I mean this is just a small game that is in its very start phase. It has room to change and grow.
Thank you anyways for not leaving a 1 star review considering the hatred you have for this game.
this is the reason i will try it out. Instead of giving in to hatred you replied in sincerity and that makes me feel a little bit more assured you really like your own game.

keep going
 
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4.00 star(s) 3 Votes