Ren'Py Apartment #69 [v0.08] [Luxee]

[Rutonat]

I think part of the problem with harem games is they give every girl exactly one kink, or she is there to represent an aesthetic, and most of those are pretty vanilla. So you'll have one girl that likes oral more than the rest, one that's into anal, the one with curly red hair, etc. The cast gets bloated to cover all the bases and none of the characters get enough screen time to properly develop. A smaller cast where all the girls are into several things would help a lot. You could write a very forward masochistic redhead with a thing for exhibitionism, but most devs instead create one slutty girl, one masochist, one redhead, and one exhibitionist, each with a quarter of the screen time and a tenth of the character development of putting all those kinks on one package.

Which is exactly why I love this game as well as Bad Memories. Characters have depth.

Let's be honest, A69 doesn't exactly have a "small cast", yet not a single character seems to be two dimensional. Sure at first they seem like they fit a cliché, but quickly they show more and are well written, even if it stays basic. For example, the little sister's best friend (I forgot her name...) isn't especially complex as far as concept goes. It's a young girl that has a big crush on her friend's big brother. That's a cliché you can see even in real life. Yet it's written in such an adorable way...

Bad Memories, on the other hand, as a smaller cast with less cliché-ed archetypes (not by too much though), and yet they're also masterfully written and get deeper and deeper as the game progress, on top of having an oddball (Ellie in that case, being an unusual concept, like Neah is to A69).

Classic archetypes aren't inherently a bad thing. It mostly depends on how well they're written.

 

[exazubi]

I think part of the problem with harem games is they give every girl exactly one kink, or she is there to represent an aesthetic, and most of those are pretty vanilla. So you'll have one girl that likes oral more than the rest, one that's into anal, the one with curly red hair, etc. The cast gets bloated to cover all the bases and none of the characters get enough screen time to properly develop. A smaller cast where all the girls are into several things would help a lot. You could write a very forward masochistic redhead with a thing for exhibitionism, but most devs instead create one slutty girl, one masochist, one redhead, and one exhibitionist, each with a quarter of the screen time and a tenth of the character development of putting all those kinks on one package.

It has less to do with the fetishes. Most of these games just have zero story. A short scenarion is created. After that, it's all about getting into the girls' panties as quickly as possible. The LIs often have no everyday life, no background story. Almost nothing happens in these games. There is no reason to fall in love or to get to know the women better. They are just meat. Often we just play through it once and move on. We often don't even read through the dialogues, we just click to the next lewd scene. There are just far too many games of this kind that are basically all the same, apart from a few variations. And if you've seen the same thing over and over again, you become more demanding.

Good stories are half the fun. And that's missing in a lot of games.

 

[YogSothoth1982]

This is exactly why i hardly play vanilla/harem titles anymore. They are interchangeable, basically always the same. I've just seen too much of it.

I think THIS game stands out and stands out precisely because of Neah. Apart from this it still gets lost in the crowd. But only because it has hardly had any atmosphere so far. I hope that will change. The storytelling is very good.

I agree that Nea has a good development and a worked story behind her. She's definitely a good character, but I think people at the thread already know my opinion about starting a romance with her.

In any case, without a doubt she is the character with the most emotional charge and the deepest story in the game.

 

[Ghostface Reborn]

I agree that Nea has a good development and a worked story behind her. She's definitely a good character, but I think people at the thread already know my opinion about starting a romance with her.

In any case, without a doubt she is the character with the most emotional charge and the deepest story in the game.

try dipping your toes in it... I did and others did--one person I debated with felt the same way until I offered him the WVM game.

 

[YogSothoth1982]

try dipping your toes in it... I did and others did--one person I debated with felt the same way until I offered him the WVM game.

In this one I already made the choice and preferred the route where there is no romance with Nea.

The game you're referring to sounds familiar to me, I don't know if I've played it (I think not).

 

[YogSothoth1982]

all I'll say is this:

You must be registered to see the links

This video has already been recommended to me on some other occasion. Certainly not by seeing it I have changed my tastes.

 

[Queen of Hearts]

Kinda wish I didn't take a peak at the tracker to see progress. Looks like maybe June for A69 if were lucky.

 

[Ifartedtoolong]

It more depends on when they finish PL update. 4 Things haven't even been touched yet 3 things are half done. March is almost done so if they were to finish it in March/April you'd most likely be looking at June/July if you figure in a 3 month time frame for the apartment 69 update to be done.

 

[k!nek]

We must be patient but i have hope that new update will be in first half of april

 

[Corambis]

We must be patient but i have hope that new update will be in first half of april

Unless you're talking about the update for PL, as Ifartedtoolong said it would likely be 3 months after that update comes out for A69 to have its update. Zero work has been done on the next A69 update based on what Luxee is reporting; it's all the Parental Love update. Although I wouldn't be completely surprised if Luxee announces they're getting burnt out on A69 and needs to take a break or has a new game they want to try for a bit.

 

[Shark_inA-chiar]

Unless you're talking about the update for PL, as Ifartedtoolong said it would likely be 3 months after that update comes out for A69 to have its update. Zero work has been done on the next A69 update based on what Luxee is reporting; it's all the Parental Love update. Although I wouldn't be completely surprised if Luxee announces they're getting burnt out on A69 and needs to take a break or has a new game they want to try for a bit.

Parental Love update??
i thought is was a done game why the hell is he working on it then?

 

[Rutonat]

Parental Love update??
i thought is was a done game why the hell is he working on it then?

Updating some scenes, changing some to animations, and remaking some renders, apparently. Basically tweeking to "finish" the game rather than having a "complete" one (i.e. it having an ending).

 

[Bev_]

Parental Love update??
i thought is was a done game why the hell is he working on it then?

You can check out full list of changes and progress

You must be registered to see the links

.

 

[JGNeon]

Speaking of which, it was just updated today:

 

[Corambis]

Parental Love update??
i thought is was a done game why the hell is he working on it then?

Personally, I think a part of it is that Luxee needed a break from A69. Partway through PL they took a break to write the first update of A69. In fact, they wanted to switch to A69 at that point and put PL on hold, but that got voted down by their patrons. Now that they've been working on A69 for a while, the itch to do something different and recharge creatively must be pretty high. And maybe it gives them time to figure out what they want to do with the game, especially with killing off Nea for a huge portion of the players and the potential for extra work that causes them. Working on PL probably seems like a vacation in comparison, plus there are some unresolved things from that game. I was always disappointed that Jenna losing her virginity in the flashback stuff was just basically covered with two renders and a little narrative text.

 

[Ifartedtoolong]

Corambis

They didn't take a break from PL to do this they did the first update of apartment 69 at the same time they were doing the wife only route for PL as many were not on the wife only route and the DEV wanted something for the people that were not on the wife only route to play. Both the wife only and first upload of apartment 69 were released at the same time.

Apartment 69 first update: V0.01: 717 Images - 27 September 2018
PL wife only route: V0.7: 189 Images - 27 September 2018

 

[El_Loco]

Speaking of which, it was just updated today:

View attachment 1719965

I don't understand why, but it's obviously very slow. At this rate, the A 69 update will be no earlier than July-August.

 

[Corambis]

Corambis

They didn't take a break from PL to do this they did the first update of apartment 69 at the same time they were doing the wife only route for PL as many were not on the wife only route and the DEV wanted something for the people that were not on the wife only route to play. Both the wife only and first upload of apartment 69 were released at the same time.

Apartment 69 first update: V0.01: 717 Images - 27 September 2018
PL wife only route: V0.7: 189 Images - 27 September 2018

The wife-only update was the very small update that few people wanted and a lot of people never saw because they never actively pursued just the wife. I imagine Luxee dashed that out pretty quickly and could have released it shortly after the previous update. Instead they sat on it until the release of A69 so that it presented the illusion that they'd been toiling over the tiny update the entire time and that the much larger A69 update somehow wasn't taking time away from PL. Because at the time patrons like me were supporting Luxee for Parental Love, and not some new game. And Luxee knew that technically he couldn't just take an obvious break from the game everyone was supporting to start work on another, or at least he'd take a lot of crap for it. Their plan was to get that first update of A69 out there and win people over with it so they'd vote to switch to that. Unfortunately for Luxee, that didn't happen. A69 lost every vote that came up related to it. People wanted more PL content instead.

So yeah, I'd still call it a break. It was time and effort taken away from PL, even if Luxee kept to their update schedule by putting out an update that was way too small.

 

[jamdan]

This isn't getting an update until mid-summer probably. For whatever reason, he is moving a lot slower than he used to. 7 scenes and 4 tasks shouldn't take nearly as long as it is.

This is becoming an issue for this game too. Little content per update yet longer update waits.

 

[Rutonat]

For whatever reason, he is moving a lot slower than he used to.

Probably a little thing called "life", if I had to guess.