VN Ren'Py Because I Love Her [Ep.1 P1] [The Typist]

[MaxRichard]

Dear dev, please add a dialogue box opacity slider to your game. The box is often in the way of the goodies (I know I can hide it with H but still)

add this one line to options.rpy anywhere (I added at the very bottom)

default persistent.dialogueBoxOpacity = 0.5

then add this one line to screens.rpy under the `say` screen

        background Transform(Frame("gui/textbox.png",xalign=0.5, yalign=1.0), alpha=persistent.dialogueBoxOpacity)

so the result looks like:

# ...
screen say(who, what):
    style_prefix "say"

    window:
        id "window"
        background Transform(Frame("gui/textbox.png",xalign=0.5, yalign=1.0), alpha=persistent.dialogueBoxOpacity)

        if who is not None:

# rest of code continues normally...

finally, add this one vbox to screens.rpy too, under screen preferences, below the "Additional vboxes..." message which is already there (i.e. add the last 3 lines below)

                ## Additional vboxes of type "radio_pref" or "check_pref" can be
                ## added here, to add additional creator-defined preferences.
                vbox:
                    label _("Dialogue box opacity")
                    bar value FieldValue(persistent, "dialogueBoxOpacity", range=1.0, style="slider")

I added this in the jankiest way possible since the slider covers the entire width of the preferences window, but I'm sure there are instructions in the docs / on Google for how to place a smaller slider neatly somewhere

 

[TheTypist]

Dear dev, please add a dialogue box opacity slider to your game. The box is often in the way of the goodies (I know I can hide it with H but still)

add this one line to options.rpy anywhere (I added at the very bottom)

default persistent.dialogueBoxOpacity = 0.5

then add this one line to screens.rpy under the `say` screen

        background Transform(Frame("gui/textbox.png",xalign=0.5, yalign=1.0), alpha=persistent.dialogueBoxOpacity)

so the result looks like:

# ...
screen say(who, what):
    style_prefix "say"

    window:
        id "window"
        background Transform(Frame("gui/textbox.png",xalign=0.5, yalign=1.0), alpha=persistent.dialogueBoxOpacity)

        if who is not None:

# rest of code continues normally...

finally, add this one vbox to screens.rpy too, under screen preferences, below the "Additional vboxes..." message which is already there (i.e. add the last 3 lines below)

                ## Additional vboxes of type "radio_pref" or "check_pref" can be
                ## added here, to add additional creator-defined preferences.
                vbox:
                    label _("Dialogue box opacity")
                    bar value FieldValue(persistent, "dialogueBoxOpacity", range=1.0, style="slider")

I added this in the jankiest way possible since the slider covers the entire width of the preferences window, but I'm sure there are instructions in the docs / on Google for how to place a smaller slider neatly somewhere

I got this feedback on steam quite a bit! I’ll definitely be shrinking the box a bit and adding a slider to adjust the opacity. Thanks for the feedback

 

[MaxRichard]

I got this feedback on steam quite a bit! I’ll definitely be shrinking the box a bit and adding a slider to adjust the opacity. Thanks for the feedback

by the way, I should have opened with that but was in a hurry when I typed the last comment: I think the game is great and the renders are awesome, so well done!

I'm not a fan of NTR but I think the way you did it was thoughtful, suits the theme of the story, was honest to your own desire of including that content, and still allowed the player to pick whether to go down that path or not. That's not an easy balance to strike, so I applaud you for that too

I also like how the choices "made sense". Many games have seemingly minor choices that you have no idea what their consequence will be, but here it felt like whatever choice you made had pretty obvious consequences. Alternatively sometimes they have too many choices with no consequence (I'm looking at you, "My Best Deal")

One piece of constructive story-wise feedback is that it feels like the MC choices that aren't pro-open-relationship make him sound like a bit of a coward? Like Claire is the one taking the lead most of the time (which I guess suits the (optional-)NTR vibe). That's a long way of saying that I would appreciate being able to play as an MC that is more dominant. In fact by the time I got to the Arora scene, it was a relief to have the chance to be dominant for the first time, even if that didn't last as long as I had hoped LOL

EDIT: also maybe that's just my personal preference for both Love/Lust pathing being available which I tend to really appreciate because it adds a ton of replayability. Right now it seems like we have a Sharing/Love path planned but no real dominant/lust/corruption path

Anyway, congrats again on a great game. I feel like it has a ton of potential!

 

[TheTypist]

by the way, I should have opened with that but was in a hurry when I typed the last comment: I think the game is great and the renders are awesome, so well done!

I'm not a fan of NTR but I think the way you did it was thoughtful, suits the theme of the story, was honest to your own desire of including that content, and still allowed the player to pick whether to go down that path or not. That's not an easy balance to strike, so I applaud you for that too

I also like how the choices "made sense". Many games have seemingly minor choices that you have no idea what their consequence will be, but here it felt like whatever choice you made had pretty obvious consequences. Alternatively sometimes they have too many choices with no consequence (I'm looking at you, "My Best Deal")

One piece of constructive story-wise feedback is that it feels like the MC choices that aren't pro-open-relationship make him sound like a bit of a coward? Like Claire is the one taking the lead most of the time (which I guess suits the (optional-)NTR vibe). That's a long way of saying that I would appreciate being able to play as an MC that is more dominant. In fact by the time I got to the Arora scene, it was a relief to have the chance to be dominant for the first time, even if that didn't last as long as I had hoped LOL

EDIT: also maybe that's just my personal preference for both Love/Lust pathing being available which I tend to really appreciate because it adds a ton of replayability. Right now it seems like we have a Sharing/Love path planned but no real dominant/lust/corruption path

Anyway, congrats again on a great game. I feel like it has a ton of potential!

Thanks for this! Something I have to say as the Developer is when you spend so much of the time posing, rendering, animating, it’s almost difficult to remember exactly what your intentions were when you write something out and suddenly you’re posing and wondering if you made the right decisions. Then, I see comments like yours that practically summarize my intentions and let me know whether or not I executed the way I intended, and I appreciate such feedback. I do want the MC to become more brave in his decision making. I believe in such a relationship with open minded exploring, one or the other can be hesitant at times and I wanted it to feel that way because your core emotion is love for that person, whereas your secondary emotion is wanting to do almost anything to make them feel good. What I want to explore is what happens when you pass that stage of discomfort and begin to feel confident in your choices. This will lead to plenty more options of course
When it comes to the love route, I myself wasn’t even confident in my writing abilities for what people may want, so I looked everywhere for advice. I believe I’ve got it figured out now so I’m super excited to see how it goes

 

[NebulousShooter]

Well, not different of people calling swing and sharing and even cucklod as “ntr route” since they are not the same either

Might not be the same, but they tend to share the same target audience, or more importantly the ones that dislike NTR dislike the other 3 as well. Discussing semantics is pointless if the scenes share the same narrative purpose and are designed to elicit the same type of emotions out of players, or the type of LI that fits swinging, sharing, or netorase relationships is a LI that is more predisposed for text book NTR.

One more example of how useless these debates about definitions usually are, for a player looking for a romance route a forced NTR, or a forced sharing/swinging scene would be equally shit and how you define it would mean absolutely nothing. I hope you catch my point.

Side note, dis game good? I think I downloaded it like 5 times and never got around to playing it. Which one is the classic lipe girl?

 

[lipe2410]

Might not be the same, but they tend to share the same target audience, or more importantly the ones that dislike NTR dislike the other 3 as well. Discussing semantics is pointless if the scenes share the same narrative purpose and are designed to elicit the same type of emotions out of players, or the type of LI that fits swinging, sharing, or netorase relationships is a LI that is more predisposed for text book NTR.

One more example of how useless these debates about definitions usually are, for a player looking for a romance route a forced NTR, or a forced sharing/swinging scene would be equally shit and how you define it would mean absolutely nothing. I hope you catch my point.

I agree with you in parts. I don't like NTR at all, but i do like stories about swingers and/or couples who are in a open relationships as part of their sexual life's. I also kinda disagree when you say their narrative is the same and designed to elicit the same feelings (which i guess you're talking about jealousy and pain from the lost of the loved one). But i agree with you that in almost all games with swing or sharing this type of content is writing in a way that leans way more towards ntr/cucklod and this in part explain why people see them as the same thing. That's the problem i at least see: We really have a lack of good, wholesome and TRULY swing/open marriage stories in AVNs (the only good example i can think is Exciting Games)

Your point about narrative and feelings also fit in the love vs harem issue: if the storytelling shows John (the male MC if this game here) gathering somkind of "harem" with Claire, Zoey, Gwen and the other LI's in a narrative focus to elicit positive and wholesome feelings, then it's a love route. Not a monogamous, but still a love route. just take a look in the "harem" route of Bare Witness. Who will say that is not in someway a love story? In the end, is all about how dev craft the route

Side note, dis game good? I think I downloaded it like 5 times and never got around to playing it. Which one is the classic lipe girl?

Renders and girls are beautifull, it's focused on the life of the main couple. But there is still very little content to really give a veredict. But i'm hangin around for Claire, her sister Zoey and Marie (MILF next door )

 

[SlapE]

I agree with you in parts. I don't like NTR at all, but i do like stories about swingers and/or couples who are in a open relationships as part of their sexual life's. I also kinda disagree when you say their narrative is the same and designed to elicit the same feelings (which i guess you're talking about jealousy and pain from the lost of the loved one). But i agree with you that in almost all games with swing or sharing this type of content is writing in a way that leans way more towards ntr/cucklod and this in part explain why people see them as the same thing. That's the problem i at least see: We really have a lack of good, wholesome and TRULY swing/open marriage stories in AVNs (the only good example i can think is Exciting Games)

Your point about narrative and feelings also fit in the love vs harem issue: if the storytelling shows John (the male MC if this game here) gathering somkind of "harem" with Claire, Zoey, Gwen and the other LI's in a narrative focus to elicit positive and wholesome feelings, then it's a love route. Not a monogamous, but still a love route. just take a look in the "harem" route of Bare Witness. Who will say that is not in someway a love story? In the end, is all about how dev craft the route


Renders and girls are beautifull, it's focused on the life of the main couple. But there is still very little content to really give a veredict. But i'm hangin around for Claire, her sister Zoey and Marie (MILF next door )

Yeah I also fall into the camp of, I can't stand netorare, but am a fan of the more wholesome/loving swinging/netorase games. When it comes to sharing/swinging games, I am not a fan of submissive/cuck MC's, but more so a stag/vixen relationship. When it comes to swinging, as long as it's still a loving/romantic relationship outside of their sexcapades, then I'm all for it.

Unfortunately, it's true that a lot of netorase/swinging games still give off NTR-ish vibes. Why devs do this I will never understand, they might as well just make NTR games at that point. Luckily this game handles the relationship very well, and on both the romance and the sharing path, the relationship feels wholesome and loving.

Also I agree that harem/poly games can very much be a love story, depending on how it's written and how many people are part of the relationship of course. I'm glad you put Bare Witness as an example, I love that games and the poly relationship in that game is very loving and well done in my opinion at least.

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[Pr0GamerJohnny]

Might not be the same, but they tend to share the same target audience, or more importantly the ones that dislike NTR dislike the other 3 as well. Discussing semantics is pointless if the scenes share the same narrative purpose and are designed to elicit the same type of emotions out of players, or the type of LI that fits swinging, sharing, or netorase relationships is a LI that is more predisposed for text book NTR.

One more example of how useless these debates about definitions usually are, for a player looking for a romance route a forced NTR, or a forced sharing/swinging scene would be equally shit and how you define it would mean absolutely nothing. I hope you catch my point.

Side note, dis game good? I think I downloaded it like 5 times and never got around to playing it. Which one is the classic lipe girl?

That's not true at all. If I had my way, I'd never play an NTR game again, but definitely play swinging games.

The emotions couldn't be more dissimilar, one sees the mc comfortable and happy with LI, the other sees mc always dreading her next action. Most players who would see swinging scenes the same as NTR aren't really looking for a "romance" route, they're looking for a harem route. That's not to say a player is REQUIRED to be okay with swinging for romance, but let's be real here; many harem fans automatically position themselves as the "pro-romance" camp when it's often anything but true.

Having said that, I completely agree with-

One piece of constructive story-wise feedback is that it feels like the MC choices that aren't pro-open-relationship make him sound like a bit of a coward? Like Claire is the one taking the lead most of the time (which I guess suits the (optional-)NTR vibe). That's a long way of saying that I would appreciate being able to play as an MC that is more dominant. In fact by the time I got to the Arora scene, it was a relief to have the chance to be dominant for the first time, even if that didn't last as long as I had hoped LOL

In a perfect world, there would be four variations; an pro-open relationship confident/dominant path and the opposite, and a pro-monogamous relationship confident/dominant path and the opposite. It does currently feel like the dialogue both in style and volume is weighted towards a pro-open relationship middle-to-low confidence path. But I understand and respect the dev's response, it can be difficult to write in a voice that perhaps comes secondary to the writer.

 

[MaxRichard]

It does currently feel like the dialogue both in style and volume is weighted towards a pro-open relationship middle-to-low confidence path. But I understand and respect the dev's response, it can be difficult to write in a voice that perhaps comes secondary to the writer.

FWIW from the dev's thoughtful response earlier, I understood (perhaps incorrectly) that the goal of the story is to show the MC becoming a more dominant person if they allow themselves to be one (by departing their comfort zone), so I think that's pretty cool — even if I personally tend to be more dominant from the outset (or I like to think so!).

Not every story needs to be 100% generic. Character development is a worthwhile goal and seldom found in AVNs, so maybe we just weren't ready for it.

Having said that, if this character arc is indeed the goal, maybe a little bit more of foreshadowing in the earlier parts of the story would be helpful, to hint at the possibility of this development. And in which case, I would suggest more "show, don't tell" than thought bubbles by the MC (not saying the latter is prevalent in this particular story, but I do think too many AVNs are guilty of forgetting the golden rule)

 

[NebulousShooter]

But there is still very little content to really give a veredict.

Now, thats a much bigger red flag, don't know about the history of this game, but I cannot ignore the OP release date.

 

[Maviarab]

Now, thats a much bigger red flag, don't know about the history of this game, but I cannot ignore the OP release date.

I think we're now on it's third iteration I've lost count lol. There is also no planned pre-written story (dev has as much as admitted this without actually stating it so succintly recently)....I would hazard a guess that another rewrite...re-start or something else happening is high.

Dev may not like hearing that, but only brought that line of thinking upon himself. We're all thinking it at some level, difficult not too given the devlopment history.

 

[atrebor68]

Ok, I have to admit that after I had replayed the "new" game others times, is really arousing. Good, good rework.

 

[Big Rooster]

Ok, I have to admit that after I had replayed the "new" game others times, is really arousing. Good, good rework.

Third times a charm so it seems.
Imagination can get the story so far, but a coherent story structure and resolution are equally important.
Now that The Typist has a viable story in his pocket, I would like to recommend he writes down (or types) an ending. Not to be set in concrete, but only as an outline as to where he's going with the story. The sketchy neighbors and coffee shop duo are ripe with intrigue. They both could turn out to be friends or foes! His lady boss is another interesting character, she could pay him an insane amount of money for a good story, and he could become addicted to the money or the risky sexual nature of the stories he is writing. Zoey and Claire would be more than willing to do what is necessary to make an interesting and very kinky story, in fact they both recklessly embrace the "living on the edge" lifestyle, to their benefit or peril. Zoeys eagerness on giving up her virtue, to an essentially a stranger, bodes well for raising her kink index.

random "what if" thoughts that can be used or not.

 

[atrebor68]

Third times a charm so it seems.
Imagination can get his story so far, but a coherent structure and resolution are especially equally important.

Beatiful phrase.

 

[Big Rooster]

Beautiful phrase.

I was channeling my high school English teacher

 

[atrebor68]

Ok, I have to admit that after I had replayed the "new" game others times, is really arousing. Good, good rework.

Hi Typist, how many years !
All good, but the part at the glory-hole was dynamite and I miss that!

 

[D3vilMan]

Hi Typist, how many years !
All good, but the part at the glory-hole was dynamite and I miss that!

Yeah..The Glory hole,The bathroom part and the secret meetup in Damian apartment was great in the old version..hoped they would be added in the new version as well,but anyway new version is great..I just hope there will be more ntr,cuck scenes.

 

[Joshy92]

I like that Typist made the steam achievements super easy so far.

 

[Big Rooster]

Yeah..The Glory hole,The bathroom part and the secret meetup in Damian apartment was great in the old version..hoped they would be added in the new version as well,but anyway new version is great..I just hope there will be more ntr,cuck scenes.

maybe she has to get corrupted more on this itineration of this game

 

[Joshy92]

Honestly, I'll be happy as long as I can share the girls without them cheating on me.
I think it'll be fine though I already told Claire as long as I'm there she can go wild.