VN Ren'Py Between Humanity - Development thread

[DebatingPanda]

Greetings, fellow enthusiasts of adult games and novels!

tl;dr: 3dcgi sci-fi oriented novel; story/tags -> read below; girls/render quality -> screenshots; feedback -> would appreciate it!

The game got released and you can find and download it here: F95Zone

As an admirer of the visual novel genre, I have always been drawn to its potential for evoking
emotions and delivering immersive experiences. While playing various novels, I often thought about
the idea of having more choices, and now that I am developing my own novel, I can understand
why many creators opt for a linear storyline. Nevertheless, I aspire to explore and expand upon
this aspect in my own novel in the future.

Over the past four months, I have been developing an idea for a visual novel set in our modern society.
Without giving away too much and with the possibility of making some story element changes along the way.

Insights into the plot:
You are a young male adult with a keen interest in women and related matters. You awaken in a hospital where
your best friend Lucy anxiously awaits your emergence from a coma, since you were discovered unconscious.
It gradually becomes apparent that you were involved in a car accident, although the extent to which
this incident will upend your life will be revealed throughout the course of the story and your choices.

I have already designed 14 female and 5 male characters for the story (the final number may
vary depending on the story's progression), with the initial version featuring 6 girls and 3 boys
alongside the main character, I provided some screenshots of them below.

While "Between Humanity" proudly delves into adult themes, especially in later versions,
it does so with a commitment to storytelling and character development.
I aim to create an experience that goes beyond simple adult entertainment and strives
to engage players on a deeper level. Rest assured, I will also include a gallery feature
where you can revisit and enjoy every sexual scene.

I am utilizing an existing framework for character creation, although I am constantly
striving to improve the quality of the images as my level of experience grows.

Here are the tags I plan to include inside the novel to give you an idea of what awaits you:

Spoiler: Planned tags in the first release:

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Spoiler: Planned tags in the final game:

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Spoiler: Possible tags:

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Spoiler: Screenshots

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If you wish, I invite you to provide criticism and feedback, as I value the input of the everyone.

Thank you for your time, and I eagerly look forward to sharing the first version of
"Between Humanity" with all of you later this year.

Kind regards,
DebatingPanda

Edit: Updated tags to it's current state.

 

[DebatingPanda]

Hello!

It's your friendly bamboo-eating animal. Small update after the weekend: Most of the content for the first version is ready. I'm currently going over everything for the 100th time and making some improvements here and there to create something that is near perfect in my own eyes. Just need to bundle everything up, implement sounds and effects and also make some remaining animations!

This brings me to my main question for this post: What are you looking for in an adult visual novel? What should I focus on? I would love to make everything perfect, but time is finite unfortunately, and I work a 9-5 job like most of you probably too.
So, I decided to use the poll function for anyone interested in sharing what you value the most. You can vote on up to three aspects, comment below if I forgot something important!

Also, I finished an animation template over the weekend, which I plan to use for the introduction of all the interactable characters. I will add it below with one of my favorite characters, hope you like it too!

Spoiler: Animation

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[DebatingPanda]

Good evening everyone!

just a small update this week, I mostly worked on a feature for my game. I worked hard on the Ren'Py part over the last week. I managed to program multiple apps for the phone framework I use (it's from

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, if you like it check it out!) and ensured that everything works like I want it to. I also reworked some of the existing phone code to make it fit more into the scheme I want for the game.

Here are some in-game screenshots to show you what you will be able to do on the phone! Some images are still placeholder though.

Spoiler: Phone screenshots

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[Saint Blackmoor]

Hey there, It looks like you are making good progress.
The phone layout looks good, easy to read.

 

[DebatingPanda]

Thank you very much Saint Blackmoor!
I'm glad to hear that everything is accessible. Currently, I have an early android version of my game, which I've shared with some friends for them to try out and provide feedback on the UI and other aspects. There are still many missing transitions and image corrections, but I've been extremely busy in recent weeks working on it, which is why there haven't been any updates on the forum.

Small update nonetheless:
I developed a workflow which I follow to create my final image quality and size. Here is a render in three different qualities and sizes. Can't post the native rendered image though, f95 doesn't allow me to upload 30 mb images.

Spoiler: Screenshots

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[DebatingPanda]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to provide another update for all those who are interested! I'm currently working on the final scene, and once that's done, I'll be focusing on my to-do list. This list mainly involves programming tasks, including working on features for the phone framework.

In addition, I've set up a Discord server. However, I'm still in the process of figuring out how to manage roles and everything related. I'll be sharing a link to the Discord server along with the official release of version 0.1 in the game release thread.

On another note, a friend of mine has been working on some banners for the game. Personally, I think she did an excellent job, and I'm curious to know what you all think about the different banners. I've created a poll, you can find the link below or you can just write inside the thread, your choice.

Appreciate any vote and thank you all for the support!

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Spoiler: Banners (1 to 5)

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[DebatingPanda]

Good day, good evening, everybody.

The story is mostly complete and is currently undergoing proofreading by Saint Blackmoor!

Today, I am excited to share a video of the main menu, but more importantly, a detailed look at the gallery I have been diligently working on in recent days.

I hope you enjoy it!

I am planning to release my game next month. So far, I've received some pretty positive feedback, and I'm quite satisfied with its current state.

So far, have a great day.

Spoiler: Gallery video

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[DebatingPanda]

Greetings!

This will probably be my last post before the official release of Chapter 01 next month!

It's the first time I've worked on a game, and I've come a long way since day one. Looking back, I didn't think I'd be able to create something that would personally give me chills in certain scenes, even though I know exactly what will happen. However, I built this game around some of my personal interests and the things I enjoy but I hope you will enjoy it too and I'm really looking forward to receiving feedback from everyone after I release the game!


The Game:
Now let's talk about the game a little bit in detail:

The world won't revolve primarily around you, even if you're the main character. Every character will have their own choices based on how you treat them, although the variety of choices will be limited by the combined (wo-)manpower behind the game. But those are my plans, at least. I might have played too much Baldur's Gate 3 and want more choices...

As I mentioned in my first post, you are a male student and you will be living together with three women. During the game, weird things will occur, making you wonder what the heck is happening. You will see and experience strange things, though the first chapter mainly introduces the characters. It still contains sex scenes, mysterious dreams and humor to a degree.
I don't want to spoil too much of the story so I may be a bit hesitant to provide too many details about it, you can experience it soon enough if you like the tags and the setting.

Spoiler: Noo

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Development:
More information about the development:

I'm currently still working on the sound and music to enhance the immersion of the game. It's kind of tricky to find suitable music and sound effects for the sex scenes, but I will do my best, as usual.

I've also implemented a quick system to track your overall stats throughout multiple playthroughs, so you can see exactly how much sex you've had with character X over the course of your games. Hence, as you guessed it, some scenes are not achievable in one playthrough unless you save right before a decision, of course.

Spoiler: Stats

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Additionally, the options menu will offer numerous switches, including Quality of Life features such as text size, dialogue window width/height, and dialogue box opacity. There will also be immersive settings like the ability to hide characters' reactions to your choices or disable the coloring of names in spoken sentences.

Spoiler: Settings Image

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I also enjoyed working on editing some of the existing images and give them a little something:

Spoiler: Special effects

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Here is also one of my later sex scenes where I already got some experience with handling animations (I have no clue where to upload this type of video (help appreciated), so here is an image of the scene instead):

Spoiler: Sex scene

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Until then, have a great day and

Spoiler: Bye!

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[DebatingPanda]

Hi!

Version 0.1 has been released! You can download it here:
https://f95zone.to/threads/renpy-between-humanity-v0-1-debatingpanda.177547/

Feel free to try it out and leave some feedback if you want to!

Cheers.

 

[DebatingPanda]

I don't want this thread to die out, so I'm going to post my regular development updates here as well!

The release of version 0.1 was quite something, I didn't think that I would reach such a huge amount of people, which is really impressive to me.

My plan for version 0.2 is to reach an equivalent number of renders as I have in version 0.1. Just as a side note, for version 0.3 and beyond, I may consider changing the update cycle to include less content in more frequent updates. This decision will be based on the overall feedback I gain from the second version. (I'm currently limiting my ability to promote the game on F95 because I'm not uploading new content every two weeks.)

But that's future thinking, not relevant for the present. I would estimate that, render-wise, Chapter 2 is currently about 20% complete. It's been two weeks since I started working on it, so I believe that's a good progress, at least for me.

Let's see how the journey continues. I really appreciate the support, and it's great to see people enjoying the game. Which is something I truly enjoy hearing, it shows that the work I put into the game over the last month was worth it.

That's from me. Have a great day! Oh and enjoy the render I made for Halloween!

 

[DebatingPanda]

Hello guys!

Got some development news for you all.

First I will use the upcoming weekend to work on version 0.1.5, which includes a major text overhaul. The storyline remains the same, but the dialogue has undergone significant improvements (thanks to my proofreader). I'm very curious to hear what you think about the updated content.

Secondly I'm taking some additional time to improve my already done chapter 2 content. Over the past week I learned quite a lot about camera perspectives and angles as well as lightning in hs2 (from some amazing people!). I wasn't quite satisfied with the lightning, especially in some outside scenes so I hope this will improve them!

That's it for today, next time there will be a release post for 0.1.5!

Stay healthy, enjoy the weekend and stay warm, just like those two below!

 

[MudaSanzo]

Great Game, I wish I could play it forever

 

[DebatingPanda]

Hi everyone!

I hope your first two weeks in 2024 have been successful! Don't forget your New Year's resolutions!

The last two weeks of December were really productive in terms of working on the game (mostly due to me having vacation, hehe). Prior to that, development slowed down a bit because of my day job and other factors.

Today, I finished a really big scene with quite a bit of branching and overall a lot of content. I'm now in the process of producing renders for it, bringing the total to around 750 renders for version 0.2. Since my goal is at least around 1200 renders, I'm approximately 60% done with the renders. This doesn't include animations, proofreading, beta-testing, and other tasks though, but I'm feeling confident overall.

I'm still working on finding a good schedule for posting updates for the game and in general. I've been thinking about it for quite some time and will provide more details in the next development log. Let's just say that I plan to provide status updates after version 0.2 is released.

Next week will be another sneak peek for 0.2, stay tuned!

Anyway, that's it for today. Enjoy the remaining weekend and have a great day!

 

[DebatingPanda]

Hey there, lovely people!

Bringing you all another update on the development process of Between Humanity.

My day job keeps me busy these days, which is why some weekdays aren't as productive as they used to be, unfortunately. In addition to that, compared to my 0.1 release, I'm paying quite a lot more attention and therefore time to smaller details in each render (which you hopefully will notice once 0.2 drops, I'm eager to get that feedback!). But I think it's safe to say that I can release 0.2 next month, and I will probably take one or two weeks off from my day job to get everything done and polished for you guys!

However, I want to make sure that when I release the new Chapter, that it doesn't come out at the same time as other big game launches. It will probably be one week ahead (if manageable) or one week afterwards.

As some of you may have already noticed, I updated the Patreon memberships (SubscribeStar will follow soon). They're now clearer and more organized, and they also include the Early Access changes I mentioned in the pinned post.

That's all for today, I wishing everyone of you an enjoyable next week!

 

[DebatingPanda]

Hello everyone,

I hope you're all doing well!

I'm happy to share another update on the progress of Between Humanity.
Starting mid next week, I'll finally have a week and a half off for some much-needed vacation (*cough* work on the game) time. During this, my goal is to translate the remaining story and creating renders for those last scenes. Additionally, when beta testing and proofreading starts, I'll work on the remaining animations, sound, and code-related tasks. This includes animations for main menu and for some story scenes, making adjustments to Chapter 1 content, and some QOL improvements.

Currently, I'm reworking one of the earlier scenes for Chapter 2, as I think it doesn't meet the standards I've set for myself (those standards keep rising, tell them to stop). I intend to fine-tune certain renders and dialogue lines in the first two Chapter 2 scenes as well. I noticed they were rushed in terms of character development, and I would like to have more of a natural progression.

Also a little extra for those who enjoy statistics (like me): Chapter 2 currently sits at approximately 23,000 words and around 1,100-1,200 renders. GitHub shows 139 modified files, including 4,500 additions and 2,200 deletions, excluding any 0.2 story files. Which is quite a lot (I also updated the phone framework).

I'll provide another update towards the end of the month.
Stay tuned, and have a great week!

 

[DebatingPanda]

Hey there lovely people!

You are probably waiting for some news and I can tell you for sure, that this will be the last development log for version 0.2.

I'm approximately 90 - 95% done with the current scope. Some selected persons have already tested most of it and the proofreading effort is on track!

As some of you might know, this is my first project of this size and I'm really not the best at making good assumptions on how long I need for certain content to finish.

Despite working full time beside the development, it's quite tough to make good assumptions. But over the duration of the project, this will improve, as well as the quality of the game!

Let's talk about the game size: The current update is sitting at ~1400 renders and ~34000 words. As you can tell by comparison to last months devlog, I was missing a little bit of dialogue.

The finished update will probably have around 1500 renders, so you can definitely look forward to a few hours of additional content!

So, as you can tell, this update will be quite big and I'll definitely make version 0.3 a two-part project. (You can, of course, just wait for the final 0.3, but you're also very welcome to play the first part!)

Anyway, once I'm done with those remaining renders, I'll focus on the animations and smaller things like my 500+ code to-dos (Yay!)

That's it for today. Hope you're having a great week. The weekend comes soon!

Thank you all and take care! <3

 

[bASKOU]

So, as you can tell, this update will be quite big and I'll definitely make version 0.3 a two-part project. (You can, of course, just wait for the final 0.3, but you're also very welcome to play the first part!)

Just my 2 cents, I see many good games with about 6 months interval between 2 updates and it serves the quality and depth of each chapter. Working a full chapter with a lot of content in one update, can help you to make some adjustments in content and story wise that only can be seen when you go further in the chapter. It also keep the whole chapter in a same quality, as the time you improve the most is between 2 updates, looking at what you did well and where you could improve and what new features you could add to make it even better.

 

[DebatingPanda]

Just my 2 cents, I see many good games with about 6 months interval between 2 updates and it serves the quality and depth of each chapter. Working a full chapter with a lot of content in one update, can help you to make some adjustments in content and story wise that only can be seen when you go further in the chapter. It also keep the whole chapter in a same quality, as the time you improve the most is between 2 updates, looking at what you did well and where you could improve and what new features you could add to make it even better.

I completely agree with you. However, the advantage of splitting updates is that it significantly increases your reach and makes the game more popular, and those who are a bit impatient can enjoy new content earlier. I'll probably recommend players to replay the entire content when the second part is out, but still, your point is more than valid!

 

[bASKOU]

I completely agree with you. However, the advantage of splitting updates is that it significantly increases your reach and makes the game more popular, and those who are a bit impatient can enjoy new content earlier. I'll probably recommend players to replay the entire content when the second part is out, but still, your point is more than valid!

I understand you, there can be a lot of pressure from supporters and followers. Just find the pace you like and feel the more confortable with. Wish you the best for this game. I support only 1 patreon at a time for about 6 months, I subscribe to a patreon in january. I put you in the next on the line for july. No pressure jsut enjoy what you do, cause you do it well that way.

 

[DebatingPanda]

Today I released my newest chapter to the public Link! More development related content will come in the future, when I start working on chapter 3!