Ren'Py Black Incense [S01E01] [Himeros Studios]

[Himeros Studios]

I tried, the writing's good and all and interesting, but the rest just wasn't very appealing.

The music was droning. It's the same song just on repeat throughout most of the story. It just got boring after a while of listening to the same song over and over on loop for every single scene.

The AI images? Too many glitches, no post-processing done it seems. So many messed up hands and multiple extra fingers. Limbs not in the proper place and just odd glitches all around. Like, no love was put into them at all. Just generate and toss them in without checking if they looked right.

On that same topic of the images, there is nowhere near enough images to convey the scene you are setting. You'll be stuck on one image for a long period of time, while the text just goes on and on about all sorts of things happening, that are not even in the image. For example, if you chose to go to New York, it talks about all the things you are doing with your friend. All the places you are visiting, going out on the town, and the fun you are having, everything. Yet, it sits on the first picture of you two hugging when you first saw each other, the entire time.

These are meant to be visual novels. Keyword: Visual. I don't want to read a book while staring at one picture that has nothing to do with what the text is saying. You need to portray in the images what is going on. Thus, the whole point of a visual novel.

So yeah, wasn't a fan. It could be pretty good, but the glitched up AI images and lack of images in general made it boring for me. Either way, best of luck with this and thanks.

You know I actually agree with both your critiques! It’s behind the paywall on my Patreon but I actually said in the post for the full version new music was something I wanted to get to for this release but ran out of time before Christmas.

And more substantively on the visuals to text thing, this is a legacy thing from last release as I was still figuring stuff out that I again plan on fixing (my image pipeline is much more efficient now) as you are right it’s a little jarring in a couple of scenes. So rest assured I’m on it, both with retroactively adding images, and retroactively fixing pre-existing ones! This month’s release was unexpectedly big and Christmas got in the way a bit hence why not completely solved right now but hoping to have dealt with both of these by next release, so do watch this space! And thanks for the comment

 

[Quaser12]

It’s strange, I’ve run them on my end and not got anything (scan details below), which file and from which link?

Came up as a 'Malware.Heuristic' on my end for the two exes you see below from my report.

I am pretty sure I used either the Pixeldrain link or the Gofile link. I can't remember which exactly, sorry.

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[R1k0]

There are too many words; removing 90% of them would not change the story. However, there are 100,000 words here. Childhood, youth, some choices. And what did that add to the plot development? If you have a story, just tell it. An RPG porn game? Apparently, it is for those who enjoy reading, regardless of the content. And there is no "corruption" here; once again, they are adding this tag where it does not exist.

 

[Himeros Studios]

Came up as a 'Malware.Heuristic' on my end for the two exes you see below from my report.

I am pretty sure I used either the Pixeldrain link or the Gofile link. I can't remember which exactly, sorry.

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Still nothing my end so not sure if it’s something with your system? Have tested with a couple of things to check!

There are too many words; removing 90% of them would not change the story. However, there are 100,000 words here. Childhood, youth, some choices. And what did that add to the plot development? If you have a story, just tell it. An RPG porn game? Apparently, it is for those who enjoy reading, regardless of the content. And there is no "corruption" here; once again, they are adding this tag where it does not exist.

In one run through you’ll probably read 40000 of the 175000 words, there’s a lot of branching choice! But if you’re not someone who’s as interested in narrative this game probably isn’t for you, which is fine.

On the corruption point, already in the story she can go from a virgin to someone who has slept with a drug dealer, a teacher, a married man, and an mmf threesome, and that’s only the beginning. If there’s one tag this game will explore more than any other as it progresses its corruption!

 

[Wilwock]

FollowBobb There's an underwater tunnel connecting England and France.

 

[Upfront]

So some thoughts from having played way to many games like this:
* Parents have white hair by the time the main character has her 18th birthday. There is no way they are more than 50, that they both have entirely gray hair and look more like they are 60+ is kind of mind blowing unless something is sucking the youth out of them.
* A lot of the time I'm asked to make choices that I don't have context for. Like I was asked to pick between second sight, animal magnetism, & I believe vitality... They aren't worded that way, but that was the context of what I was trading. While having no context to what those mean. Maybe break immersion a bit to have some context to the side when introducing new concepts?
* Also... I have to ask why we can't pick like hair color. Our sister seems to be a red head, I think both parents had brownish hair (I'm commenting when they have gray hair, so it's what I recall). It seems like we should have some option here... Even if as an added scene where we go to the hair dresser.
* As others have mentioned this needs way more lesbian-leaning options... It always assumed your attracted to men at the beginning and you just don't seem to get options to be attracted to other women for quite awhile. Most lesbian and bisexual girls realize quite earlier on that they are attracted to other women, even when they play the role of being straight for social reasons and expectations. I know lesbians in their 40's who got married and had kids, but never loved their husbands and it was all about obligations. They still knew they were always attracted to women, they just never acted on it.

I'll add more later...

Not sure if it matters too much, but my mother kept mostly youthful looks her own life, but her hair turned entirely grey in her 30's. Nothing traumatic, it just sort of happened. So it CAN happen, haha.

My father was luckier, but.. xD

 

[Himeros Studios]

So some thoughts from having played way to many games like this:
* Parents have white hair by the time the main character has her 18th birthday. There is no way they are more than 50, that they both have entirely gray hair and look more like they are 60+ is kind of mind blowing unless something is sucking the youth out of them.
* A lot of the time I'm asked to make choices that I don't have context for. Like I was asked to pick between second sight, animal magnetism, & I believe vitality... They aren't worded that way, but that was the context of what I was trading. While having no context to what those mean. Maybe break immersion a bit to have some context to the side when introducing new concepts?
* Also... I have to ask why we can't pick like hair color. Our sister seems to be a red head, I think both parents had brownish hair (I'm commenting when they have gray hair, so it's what I recall). It seems like we should have some option here... Even if as an added scene where we go to the hair dresser.
* As others have mentioned this needs way more lesbian-leaning options... It always assumed your attracted to men at the beginning and you just don't seem to get options to be attracted to other women for quite awhile. Most lesbian and bisexual girls realize quite earlier on that they are attracted to other women, even when they play the role of being straight for social reasons and expectations. I know lesbians in their 40's who got married and had kids, but never loved their husbands and it was all about obligations. They still knew they were always attracted to women, they just never acted on it.

I'll add more later...

On this, Molly is the youngest of three, I’d imagined her parents were probably late thirties at her birth, so 55-60 at game start. Think a lot of people are grey by that time!

On hair colour, it would mean having to make a completely new art piece for every single art piece, which is a lot of extra work! Easier with ai now but not that simple still, so maybe something down the line but at the moment I’m a one person team and I have to prioritise.

On explaining the stats, it is there but pretty hidden so good feedback, I had thought about at some point doing a sort of tutorial tip pop up thing you can turn on/off so when I get time will do that!

And on the last point, the prologue always needs to end with Molly with Josh at the start of the story so there’s a bit of a hard limit there. Not sure if you played the alps path but there is one lesbian encounter built in there already. But rest assured there will many many many more as the game develops!