Ren'Py Alena's New Life [v0.7.5] [Jinnxx Games]
It's coming in the next update for patrons at the end of this monthIs there a path that makes Alex dominate me??
That doesn't change the fact that the whole thing makes no sense the way it is done, sorry. It's your choice to keep it that way of course but it's not good writing.
Feeling a little bad now since I did not mean to just shit talk your game and efforts (but probably came across as such) maybe I should actually explain why that 1 thing bugs me enough to write something about it. Also, for the record, let me point out that I do like other aspects of your game enough to care. The overall level of humor is enjoyable, the sex scenes I could access where steamy, the models (usually during scenes more than during dialogues) look actually pretty nice and the whole premise of the game isn't bad at all.
It's just that there is this 1 thing that really hinders my enjoyment of the game, and then it also is something that's not making sense, which makes it more frustrating.
Alena runs away from home, stealing money from her parents, moves to another city and then spends all that money immediately on interior and wardorbe. She clearly doesn't mind throwing out her cash.
After running into a bunch of new people - most of which have malicious intend towards her and try to severely harm her - she meets Loren, who is the only one not trying to take advantage of her immediately, both are sexually attracted to each other.
She even gives Alena a job and therefore a way to make money, helps her with the nasty guys and gives her some good advice. After a while Alena thinks that she wants some sex toys & learns from Loren where to buy them.
Loren warns her explicitely not to trust Zelda and that she will try to take advantage of Alena. By that point Alena has actually made the experience that Loren is knowing her stuff about the creeps around them and also has her best interest in mind.
So, what does Alena do after talking to Zelda & getting offered the shady deal? She jumps at it. No way to talk to Loren about it beforehand, no way to pay the full price of 300 bucks, no matter how much money Alena even has at that point. The player is forced to take the deal no matter what, there is a lot of content gated behind it, it automatically ruins any attempt to go for a lesbian playthrough, or one where she does not allow others to take advantage of her like a naive fool, not going along with it locks the player out of most of the (current) content.
If you want to force people to go through the Zelda blackmail (not sure if that even is your intention) it's obviously your decision to make, but there is not the slightest reason for it to happen from an in-game perspective whatsoever.
Your game, though, is in it's very early stages and I am aware of that. So this is neither me saying your game is bad, nor that you do not maybe have a lot more stuff planned that might make ignoring Zelda less of a "well you don't really get to play the game then" situation. Just, at the current moment, it feels as if you saying "you can do a pure lesbian route" or "players can decide how Alena acts (if she is more domineering or submissive) is kind of an exaggeration. And if you intend to keep things the way they are (letting Zelda and her boyfriend abuse Alena is needed to access more or less all of the story) it would be nice if you could make that more clear, because in that case this game is more of a kinetic story than anything else. But, again, this is all very early access focused, so I might completely change my opinion (and find myself being a fool) later down the line.
Please do not feel discouraged by my critique and keep up your work, no matter what I think there is also a lot of people who really enjoy everything the way it is now as far as I can tell.
Hey, I don't feel discouraged at all, please don't feel bad. Thank you for the feedback, i think I understand you.
What I was thinking when developing/writing the strapon path, beside obviously wanting for Alena to get a strapon, is for Alena to show her masochistic side. So when Loren tells her about his shady Zelda, Alena actually starts to think it would be hot to get into trouble, you might consider her to be a fool at this stage, but she's not naive. I also wanted to introduce this Zelda character that amplifies Alena's masochism and bring it to surface. I understand this might ruin the experience for some players who just want pure lesbian path, but I thought they might just get over it since the boyfriend will only be there at that path only once.
I kinda ran this idea by a lesbian friend in real life and she thought it's okay. But I still was expecting for some players to be put off by this.
What do you suggest that could be work around for this? I might maybe just make an alt scene where the boyfriend just doesn't show up at all. But I can't take Zelda completely out of the equation.
First of all: That's nice to hear, I'm not a game developer or anything but I am a content creator of sorts so the thought of having being abrasive towards a fellow artist actually bugged me (more than the Zelda thing
).I'm 100% sure that there are lesbians who don't mind that whole thing in the game at all, and I am not claiming to speak for anyone but myself, so that is definitely not an "oh the author is so insensitive" type of complaint, I do not think you are, else you wouldn't care about offering a lesbian (and just generally different paths) playthrough.
Well my 1st solution would be "let players buy the strap-on for 300 if they can afford it", because that seems to be the most natural and logical choice. That 1 does not require any additional set-up for the strap-on itself.
The way I understand you, though, is that Zelda and her blackmail of Alena is supposed to be an important part of the story. Since I couldn't really get past the first 2 scenes after the failed deal (it made me stop playing the game shortly afterwards cause I lost the enjoyment and found myself skipping through every dialogue and scene, which felt like a waste) I can not completely estimate how much of an impact it would have to give players the option to outright evade her after getting the strap I feel as if 1 possible solution would be to cut the boyfriend from the whole thing. I got the impression, though, that that would mean a lot of extra work for you, so I am not sure if I'd feel right about asking for that, even though you brought that up yourself as well.
Since you say, though, that the main reason why Zelda has an important role is that you want some plausible path for Alena to discover her masochistic side (it's btw an actually interesting piece of lore that she has not really done so yet) why not shift the NPC taking care of that to Loren, at least for players that are only interested in the lesbian stuff. After the failed deal Alena could run away instead of letting Zelda's boyfriend grope her and talk about the whole thing with Loren. It would seem pretty in character for her to help, and from there I can see more than 1 path leading to her dominating Alena. 1st of all, during the revenge on Alex scene (the 1 that is in the free version) Loren already gets quite some signs that Alena enjoys being dominated by her, add to that the way she massages her (Alena again shows clear signs of being able to enjoy being submissive) and the fact how easily Alena trusts her. To me it seems clear that Loren would be very much open to have some consensual bdsm play with Alena (she actually seems to really enjoy being in control). She could therefore (maybe depending on friendship level and/or player choices) decide to pay for the Strap and basically take over Alena from Zelda (Alena ows her instead) or (higher friendship + probably Alena picking the more passive/innocent options for the revenge in Alex) decide to just make Alena her little spoon (metaphorically speaking, i mean sub ofc) in a loving way (in lack of a better word, I can't say how serious the bonding between Loren and Alex is meant to be once the game is finished).
Last edited:
I'm sorry but I don't really understand, does that mean that there is no real lesbian route or is everything related to zelda optional?
as you are saying that zelda is an important character would that mean that to continue the story I have to do her story?
also usually when we ask for lesbian only route, it means a route without scenes with men, so a single scene would already ruin it for many of us.
Yea, this is a great suggestion. I might build an alternative bridge where Alena asks for Loren's help and things go on from there like you said, this is interesting. So like when Alena sees that Zelda is up for no good I just add the option to either continue with the already implemented path or she escapes and talks to Loren.First of all: That's nice to hear, I'm not a game developer or anything but I am a content creator of sorts so the thought of having being abrasive towards a fellow artist actually bugged me (more than the Zelda thing
I'm 100% sure that there are lesbians who don't mind that whole thing in the game at all, and I am not claiming to speak for anyone but myself, so that is definitely not an "oh the author is so insensitive" type of complaint, I do not think you are, else you wouldn't care about offering a lesbian (and just generally different paths) playthrough.
Well my 1st solution would be "let players buy the strap-on for 300 if they can afford it", because that seems to be the most natural and logical choice. That 1 does not require any additional set-up for the strap-on itself.
The way I understand you, though, is that Zelda and her blackmail of Alena is supposed to be an important part of the story. Since I couldn't really get past the first 2 scenes after the failed deal (it made me stop playing the game shortly afterwards cause I lost the enjoyment and found myself skipping through every dialogue and scene, which felt like a waste) I can not completely estimate how much of an impact it would have to give players the option to outright evade her after getting the strap I feel as if 1 possible solution would be to cut the boyfriend from the whole thing. I got the impression, though, that that would mean a lot of extra work for you, so I am not sure if I'd feel right about asking for that, even though you brought that up yourself as well.
Since you say, though, that the main reason why Zelda has an important role is that you want some plausible path for Alena to discover her masochistic side (it's btw an actually interesting piece of lore that she has not really done so yet) why not shift the NPC taking care of that to Loren, at least for players that are only interested in the lesbian stuff. After the failed deal Alena could run away instead of letting Zelda's boyfriend grope her and talk about the whole thing with Loren. It would seem pretty in character for her to help, and from there I can see more than 1 path leading to her dominating Alena. 1st of all, during the revenge on Alex scene (the 1 that is in the free version) Loren already gets quite some signs that Alena enjoys being dominated by her, add to that the way she massages her (Alena again shows clear signs of being able to enjoy being submissive) and the fact how easily Alena trusts her. To me it seems clear that Loren would be very much open to have some consensual bdsm play with Alena (she actually seems to really enjoy being in control). She could therefore (maybe depending on friendship level and/or player choices) decide to pay for the Strap and basically take over Alena from Zelda (Alena ows her instead) or (higher friendship + probably Alena picking the more passive/innocent options for the revenge in Alex) decide to just make Alena her little spoon (metaphorically speaking, i mean sub ofc) in a loving way (in lack of a better word, I can't say how serious the bonding between Loren and Alex is meant to be once the game is finished).
Though I don't think the part where Alena's owes Loren is going to happen since I'm currently building a path where Loren decides to dominate Alena. Maybe Loren could just go to Zelda to buy the strap for Alena and indulge her for Alena's sake, so like Loren takes Alena place in the boyfriend's scene. (Jk haha, the bf won't there.)
I'm planning on implementing that when Alena picks the currently WIP option in the intro mode, the "I think I like it option"
Don't worry about it, It's totally ok! Thank you for the feedback!First of all: That's nice to hear, I'm not a game developer or anything but I am a content creator of sorts so the thought of having being abrasive towards a fellow artist actually bugged me (more than the Zelda thing
I'm 100% sure that there are lesbians who don't mind that whole thing in the game at all, and I am not claiming to speak for anyone but myself, so that is definitely not an "oh the author is so insensitive" type of complaint, I do not think you are, else you wouldn't care about offering a lesbian (and just generally different paths) playthrough.
Yea the lesbian route starts after the Zelda and her bf scene, but like I said I'm going to build a an alt scene where the bf is out of the picture :3
I actually like those ideas, and it's cool to hear that you already have something going where Loren decides to dominate Alena (especially if it was in a more friendship-stat tied, consensual way). In regards to the Alena owe Loren thing: part of me meant that literally, her borrowing money from Loren to instead pay for it properly or something, but that was just me thinking of a solution, it's not something the game is missing for me in and of itself.
Loren taking Alena's place would work of course, so far I wouldn't be too surprised by her telling Zelda to quit her bullshit either, she wasn't having any of Matts and Alex's shenanigans.
It's hard for me to really say much about the specifics though, cause I don't know what stuff you already have planned & you seem to have a clear vision where you want things to go.
I'm still a little confused, in this previous comment you said that the strap on (the zelda thing) was not part of the lesbian route.
but here you answer me as if in the end it is mandatory to follow that route in order to continue.
What I want to ask is the zelda thing is mandatory or I can continue without doing any of that.
I say this to see if I can play this or better wait for the update and also because from what I've read I'm not interested in her.
thank you in advance, and thank you for deciding to create a lesbian route.
Still we don't have dom rute on Zelda? Why no adding it ther first we meet Zelda where MC use dom action on Zelda.
And adding other rutes into the first class day where we the other 2 rute are still under develpoment to make unlocked. I don't like be forced to play one choise insteed haveing the chance to choose.
And adding other rutes into the first class day where we the other 2 rute are still under develpoment to make unlocked. I don't like be forced to play one choise insteed haveing the chance to choose.
You must be registered to see the links
You must be registered to see the links
It's a false positive. Happens to many renpy games.
Zelda cannot be dominated because her character is fixed in the story. And the other 2 routes are gonna be added in month maybe.
Really I had see that choe to dom her but it wasn't even active neight added. I see - need some ommnt of point to dom Zelda. Only one was active, sub rute. but dom rute wasn't. I'm just sad i Can'thad dom rute on Zelda. Sad
- Jan 1, 2019
- 827
- 1,794
That is a good workaround that at least makes me (a lesbian path enthusiast) satisfied, where you have Zelda have her way with Alena, but the bf doesn't show up.