4.70 star(s) 7 Votes

gregers

Forum Fanatic
Dec 9, 2018
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Thank you for your feedback. I was a little bit worried that the new premise would "feel flat". I may just have to make a 180 degree turn on this and just remove the "friendly scenes" when going down the defiant path. The problem always was the tone not being consistent, and the current version 0.11.0 tries to align the tone towards a common storyline regardless if you go down defiant or submissive path.

As for when you kill Don, good to know that it feels dull and weird. I would probably fix that my just adding a bit more inner dialogue and another choice in the end where you deliberately kill him for hurting you.
I played this once before a while back, but just played through the rewrite of the defiant path (skimming some sections). The changed premise didn't do much for me beyond giving Don a flimsy excuse to indulge his worst impulses; rather than just an arsehole rapist he became a hypocritical arsehole rapist, pretending against all reason to be doing it for the MC's good.

As you point out youself, the main challenge for the number of paths in the game is tonal inconsistency, and that definitely reared its head more than a few times, with the MC suddenly acting affectionate towards or initiating sex with or only having the choice between "respecting" and "tolerating" Don (and not, say, loathing and despising him). But of course there are limits to how many variations you can reasonably include in one game without it getting out of hand. And the people who play non-defiant paths deserve a solid, consistent and coherent experience as well.

The added option for killing Don was definitely appreciated.
 

demidemon

Member
Aug 31, 2016
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496
1)" chose to believe that MC didn't even know what sex mean at the beginning of the game and has no special feelings against it." I mean if thats the case Don is even "more" evil as he is basically doing, mentally speaking, tantamaount to child sexual abuse? We would not say that a child abuser isnt "evil" or that the child isnt "abused"/"hurt" simply becouse "he/she doesnt know what sex is yet"
2)Don is evil regardless of society's attitude towards androids. If a society is evil overall it doesnt make its members non evil, they are still evil. Maybe they are less personally guilty for having become evil, as it was more something they learned by society, but the fact that they are evil doesnt change
1) MC's lack of knowledge has nothing to do with evil, but it is possible that MC cannot tell how she was treated was acceptable.

2) lets say there exist a world where dogs are treated equally as human, people taking their dogs for sterilization would be as "evil" as sterilizing their own human children to prevent STD, aggressive behavior and cancer developing in related organs. But most people in our world believes that it is "good" to sterilize their dogs.

In our history slavery was considered normal and noone at that time would consider slave owners evil how they treat their slaves. But in our standard it is definitely evil to treat someone with such unequal manner.

Good and evil has never been a fixed line and has always been changing as we evolve. I'm not saying Don isn't evil, because he definitely is in our standard. But he might not even know about that and his actions might have even been "good" (compared to others in his world) from his knowledge. I believe showing the "good" side of Don makes his character more complex and is beneficial to the story.

That being said, I still cant find time to sit and play the latest version. I'm not sure if the story has changed and whether Don behaves differently in the new version
 
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FlimsyLegs

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Game Developer
Mar 30, 2023
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2) The scene when she kills DOn becouse of his abuse is even more weak. Its all in a blur and very short, with no dialogue nor confrontation at all.
Regarding this: there are two situations where you can kill Don. In the kitchen you can choose not to take a risk by confronting him. This is that case you're talking about, right?

The other instance is if you choose to hide the knife and talk to him. You can play along for a moment, then kill him. Or you can confront him about it all. The discussion is rather heated and goes on for a while, so if you missed it I recommend giving it a read.

However, once you confront him, he is not going to be caught off-guard. You've lost the element of surprise, and there is no way you can get the upper hand anymore.
 
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FlimsyLegs

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Mar 30, 2023
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Version 0.14.0 is now available, with 35 new images! No story changes this time.

Synthetic Rush has now started working on Sequence 4, which already has roughly 15% of the art done.

Changelog for v0.14.0:


PS: If you like the writing in Animus Non Grata, then you might like my other games! Especially Jessica's Plight, which recently got a massive remake (better image quality) and an expansion (15 000 words longer, 2 new chapters). You can check out the game here on f95zone (free copy) or directly on my itch.io page (paid copy). Links:
F95Zone: https://f95zone.to/threads/jessicas-plight-v3-0-1-flimsylegs.154443/
Itch.io:
 

leofi

Newbie
Aug 7, 2017
89
55
Regarding this: there are two situations where you can kill Don. In the kitchen you can choose not to take a risk by confronting him. This is that case you're talking about, right?

The other instance is if you choose to hide the knife and talk to him. You can play along for a moment, then kill him. Or you can confront him about it all. The discussion is rather heated and goes on for a while, so if you missed it I recommend giving it a read.

However, once you confront him, he is not going to be caught off-guard. You've lost the element of surprise, and there is no way you can get the upper hand anymore.
Ok i tried the "confront"him, and
1)its not like that at all. You can only confront him about your idea that you are Hanna and not about the abuse
2) Its impossible to kill him if you dont get him off guard which nullifies the whole point of killing him AFTER confronting him about the abuse he's put you through
 

FlimsyLegs

Member
Game Developer
Mar 30, 2023
100
194
Ok i tried the "confront"him, and
1)its not like that at all. You can only confront him about your idea that you are Hanna and not about the abuse
2) Its impossible to kill him if you dont get him off guard which nullifies the whole point of killing him AFTER confronting him about the abuse he's put you through
The second point is by design.

However, the first point could require a bit more thought. I'll add it to my backlog.
 

leofi

Newbie
Aug 7, 2017
89
55
1) MC's lack of knowledge has nothing to do with evil, but it is possible that MC cannot tell how she was treated was acceptable.

2) lets say there exist a world where dogs are treated equally as human, people taking their dogs for sterilization would be as "evil" as sterilizing their own human children to prevent STD, aggressive behavior and cancer developing in related organs. But most people in our world believes that it is "good" to sterilize their dogs.

In our history slavery was considered normal and noone at that time would consider slave owners evil how they treat their slaves. But in our standard it is definitely evil to treat someone with such unequal manner.

Good and evil has never been a fixed line and has always been changing as we evolve. I'm not saying Don isn't evil, because he definitely is in our standard. But he might not even know about that and his actions might have even been "good" (compared to others in his world) from his knowledge. I believe showing the "good" side of Don makes his character more complex and is beneficial to the story.

That being said, I still cant find time to sit and play the latest version. I'm not sure if the story has changed and whether Don behaves differently in the new version
"1) MC's lack of knowledge has nothing to do with evil, but it is possible that MC cannot tell how she was treated was acceptable." It doesnt matter if it was "socially acceptable of not", is objecttively evil
2)" Good and evil has never been a fixed line and has always been changing as we evolve. " Absolutly not lol, he knows very well that he is a bastard, which is why his own wife left him and loathed him. Also we are talking about a modern society where there ARE people who know sentient beings are to be treated as free individuals and with respect regardless if they are androids or not, like the one who helps the MC if she escapes after killing DOn
" I believe showing the "good" side of Don makes his character more complex and is beneficial to the story. " I 100% disagree, as to me there's no "good side" of DOn, and showing him pretending to be "good" is just a cop-out
 

leofi

Newbie
Aug 7, 2017
89
55
The second point is by design.

However, the first point could require a bit more thought. I'll add it to my backlog.
If point two is by design then to me there was no point in adding the possibility of killing him for the abuse in the first place and the whole defiant part keeps not making much sense tbh if the only "reward" for your defiance and hatred of him is one extremely brief moment in which you kill him without not even telling him why and in which you CANT kill him without confronting him first
 

demidemon

Member
Aug 31, 2016
380
496
"1) MC's lack of knowledge has nothing to do with evil, but it is possible that MC cannot tell how she was treated was acceptable." It doesnt matter if it was "socially acceptable of not", is objecttively evil
2)" Good and evil has never been a fixed line and has always been changing as we evolve. " Absolutly not lol, he knows very well that he is a bastard, which is why his own wife left him and loathed him. Also we are talking about a modern society where there ARE people who know sentient beings are to be treated as free individuals and with respect regardless if they are androids or not, like the one who helps the MC if she escapes after killing DOn
" I believe showing the "good" side of Don makes his character more complex and is beneficial to the story. " I 100% disagree, as to me there's no "good side" of DOn, and showing him pretending to be "good" is just a cop-out
We only know that Don pretends to be good if we are in a playthrough that finds out more about the truth. The current plot allows a path that MC (and us players) thinks she is actually born to be a sex toy in a twisted broken world and that Don is the best human she could find.

This gives the game more replay value when we restart and find out more about the truth in other paths. I cannot see why this is a bad thing.

Back to good and evil, I don't think its as objective as you thought.

Imagine in on a train, there are seats prioritized for elderly and disabled but a muscular healthy man occupied one. When an old man gets on the train and badly needs a seat, the muscular man gives no fk. So a slim guy stands up and let the old man take his seat.

Is the slim guy good or evil? He is a good guy because he let the old man take his seat right?
But from another point of view, the slim guy turned a blind eye to the "evil" muscular man, more and more people would be taking the prioritized seats because some other "good" people would give their seats to the needed anyway. Some people would say the slim guy (and the old man) is "evil" because he is too coward to stand up against the "evil" muscular man and now the unfair situation becomes worse, the slim guy just helped the "evil" spread.

There's never a fixed line on good and evil, people of different values and believes would give very different conclusions.
 

leofi

Newbie
Aug 7, 2017
89
55
We only know that Don pretends to be good if we are in a playthrough that finds out more about the truth. The current plot allows a path that MC (and us players) thinks she is actually born to be a sex toy in a twisted broken world and that Don is the best human she could find.

This gives the game more replay value when we restart and find out more about the truth in other paths. I cannot see why this is a bad thing.

Back to good and evil, I don't think its as objective as you thought.

Imagine in on a train, there are seats prioritized for elderly and disabled but a muscular healthy man occupied one. When an old man gets on the train and badly needs a seat, the muscular man gives no fk. So a slim guy stands up and let the old man take his seat.

Is the slim guy good or evil? He is a good guy because he let the old man take his seat right?
But from another point of view, the slim guy turned a blind eye to the "evil" muscular man, more and more people would be taking the prioritized seats because some other "good" people would give their seats to the needed anyway. Some people would say the slim guy (and the old man) is "evil" because he is too coward to stand up against the "evil" muscular man and now the unfair situation becomes worse, the slim guy just helped the "evil" spread.

There's never a fixed line on good and evil, people of different values and believes would give very different conclusions.
Good and evil to me at their core are objective and universal, i am not in any way a moral relativist/nihilist and i believe moral relativism is, usually, merely sophistry and an excuse to justify being jerks. Of course there are different flavors and different circumstances, and one has to evaluate case by case, but imo the way to judge a certain situation is still the same, pleasure( objectively good), pain(objectively bad) and consent, and when there are cases where one cant please everyone, one should go for the path maximizing the happiness and minimizing the suffering of as many peiple as possible.
Thats my view anyway
 

FlimsyLegs

Member
Game Developer
Mar 30, 2023
100
194
Just a quick updated into this thread as well about my latest project, Taru's Infernal Pledge. Some of you have already checked the game out, and I just finished with the 0.1.0 update that adds Chapter 2 to the story, along with a ton of other improvements (music, background images, etc.). Changelog:

f95zone has a thread about this game as well, but it has not yet been updated to version 0.1.0: HTML - Taru's Infernal Pledge [v0.0.1] [FlimsyLegs] | F95zone
 

demidemon

Member
Aug 31, 2016
380
496
Good and evil to me at their core are objective and universal, i am not in any way a moral relativist/nihilist and i believe moral relativism is, usually, merely sophistry and an excuse to justify being jerks. Of course there are different flavors and different circumstances, and one has to evaluate case by case, but imo the way to judge a certain situation is still the same, pleasure( objectively good), pain(objectively bad) and consent, and when there are cases where one cant please everyone, one should go for the path maximizing the happiness and minimizing the suffering of as many peiple as possible.
Thats my view anyway
so if someone do something that would give a great amount of happiness to 200 mil people but cause the same amount of pain to 100 people. Is he good or evil? Because to the 100 people who suffer he could be very evil. (maybe something that hurts the top 100 richest people but benefit 200 mil poor ones)
And what if the ratio is 200 mil to 100 mil? is he evil or good now?
I'm pretty sure everyone will have their own answers and they are most likely all valid.
 

leofi

Newbie
Aug 7, 2017
89
55
so if someone do something that would give a great amount of happiness to 200 mil people but cause the same amount of pain to 100 people. Is he good or evil? Because to the 100 people who suffer he could be very evil. (maybe something that hurts the top 100 richest people but benefit 200 mil poor ones)
And what if the ratio is 200 mil to 100 mil? is he evil or good now?
I'm pretty sure everyone will have their own answers and they are most likely all valid.
" maybe something that hurts the top 100 richest people but benefit 200 mil poor ones " That would be good obviously.
 

FlimsyLegs

Member
Game Developer
Mar 30, 2023
100
194
Version 0.16.0 is out! Only images added this time, 13 in total. We're not roughly 85% done with Sequence 4 art!
Changelog:
 
4.70 star(s) 7 Votes