Ren'Py Cabin by the Lake [v0.34d] [Nunu]

[Bill Temple]

I really like the characters and art in this game, and I really like the fetishes. The story itself is pretty good, and the choices offered to the player feel organic. My only complaint is a long standing one with this game and its the time warp system. I'm sorry, it was a cool idea on paper but in practice it just isn't working. First, it completely takes you out of the immersion when you're constantly dumped back to the main menu. Also, it's really annoying to go through the entire weekend thinking you've made some progress only to find out you didn't. I'm begging you, abandon the idea of a time warp. Instead, do a standard linear game with all the family members meeting at the cottage for a while with gradual corruption happening organically. Simplify the corruption process, the more you interact with one girl, the more options open up for them. Don't have events dependent on which day you're interacting with them either, they should be global. Like if a player focuses on Alex, they should be able to max out her story before moving on to another girl without it impacting the game. Please, every update is just a constant slog of trying things randomly, not having them work, and getting absolutely nowhere. Scrap the time warp, it sucks. The guide is also waaaaay to hard to follow. There's no way to fix it. You have the animations, just rewrite the story and fix the mechanic to something more standard. You do this, and the programming will be much more simplified, and advancing the story will become much faster. You tried a while back with a half measure, and it was just a clunky mess. No more half measures. You've been working on this game for a while now, you must have an idea that going with a linear story would stop all of the confusion and avoid most of the bugs. Please, seriously consider it.

I disagree with basically all of that, but the time loop can be confusing for first-time players. I did need some time to understand the time loop at first, but 15 minutes into the playthrough, I had it figured out. (Not that there's anything to figure out). I still can't wrap my head around how it's justified that one time loop affects the next, or if there's going to be some "in-world" justification for why MC gets to loop through the weekend again and again. Is it a Groundhog Day situation? Is there a set of conditions that will end the loop? I'm satisfied with the game without answers to those questions while Nunu works out the plot.
That said, I follow the guide just fine. I use CTRL button to skip dialogue I've read before. The weekend is so short, that even when I fail to make progress, I've only lost 4-7 minutes of time, then I try again.
I guess my complaints are:

1. I've managed to block myself out of options with one girl by progressing too far with another, which can be a bit tedious;
2. The grammar and spelling mistakes are pretty distracting. I'm pretty tolerant of that sort of thing, but this is extreme. My first time playing a couple months ago, I started putting together a list of the mistakes and the suggested fixes, but when my list was approaching 100 items long and I was less than halfway through the loop I was on, I gave up.
   
   Spoiler: Accurate, but probably not what was intended to be written.

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3. I'm not quite certain why the older women look like they're about 45 minutes older than the younger girls, but that's any easy problem to overlook.

Anyway, great game, interesting concept, cg looks good, even the ridiculous tits become less distracting after a while. Try to line up some volunteer copy editors.

 

[mrttao]

I've managed to block myself out of options with one girl by progressing too far with another, which can be a bit tedious;

that is very bad form.
having such blocks in a game means you have to play with a walkthrough.
which completely ruins the fun for many people (myself included)

 

[Bill Temple]

that is very bad form.
having such blocks in a game means you have to play with a walkthrough.
which completely ruins the fun for many people (myself included)

Yea, it didn't seem to intended, so it's definitely something that needs to be fixed. But the game is in pre-alpha, so I'm sure these sorts of problems will be addressed within the dev cycle.

 

[Nunu312]

that is very bad form.
having such blocks in a game means you have to play with a walkthrough.
which completely ruins the fun for many people (myself included)

I can say that throughout this game, you never lose access to any content or scene. As corruption levels for characters progress they naturally gain access to new scenes, and some of the old scenes do change or get replaced. But, you can also turn the corruption levels back off to regain access to the old scenes. So any loss of content only applies to the specific loop.

One of the things I want people to be able to experience is the compete matrix of corrupted and uncorrupted characters, what happens if only one person isn't down for the orgy? Will they cause a cock block? Will they join in anyway? Whatever happens it will be something new beyond just a world of sluts. Not that I have a problem with a world of sluts, but I want players to be able to know what would happen if they corrupted Alex last without having to restart the game.

I disagree with basically all of that, but the time loop can be confusing for first-time players. I did need some time to understand the time loop at first, but 15 minutes into the playthrough, I had it figured out. (Not that there's anything to figure out). I still can't wrap my head around how it's justified that one time loop affects the next, or if there's going to be some "in-world" justification for why MC gets to loop through the weekend again and again. Is it a Groundhog Day situation? Is there a set of conditions that will end the loop? I'm satisfied with the game without answers to those questions while Nunu works out the plot.
That said, I follow the guide just fine. I use CTRL button to skip dialogue I've read before. The weekend is so short, that even when I fail to make progress, I've only lost 4-7 minutes of time, then I try again.
I guess my complaints are:

1. I've managed to block myself out of options with one girl by progressing too far with another, which can be a bit tedious;
2. The grammar and spelling mistakes are pretty distracting. I'm pretty tolerant of that sort of thing, but this is extreme. My first time playing a couple months ago, I started putting together a list of the mistakes and the suggested fixes, but when my list was approaching 100 items long and I was less than halfway through the loop I was on, I gave up.
   
   Spoiler: Accurate, but probably not what was intended to be written.

   You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.
3. I'm not quite certain why the older women look like they're about 45 minutes older than the younger girls, but that's any easy problem to overlook.

Anyway, great game, interesting concept, cg looks good, even the ridiculous tits become less distracting after a while. Try to line up some volunteer copy editors.

Thank you very much for your kind words. I recently went through and made some major spelling fixes as well as improved my process in general. Still not perfect, but I do also now have some more help on it as well. If you've still got that half a list floating around I'd be perfectly happy to take it off your hands?

I really like the characters and art in this game, and I really like the fetishes. The story itself is pretty good, and the choices offered to the player feel organic. My only complaint is a long standing one with this game and its the time warp system. I'm sorry, it was a cool idea on paper but in practice it just isn't working. First, it completely takes you out of the immersion when you're constantly dumped back to the main menu. Also, it's really annoying to go through the entire weekend thinking you've made some progress only to find out you didn't. I'm begging you, abandon the idea of a time warp. Instead, do a standard linear game with all the family members meeting at the cottage for a while with gradual corruption happening organically. Simplify the corruption process, the more you interact with one girl, the more options open up for them. Don't have events dependent on which day you're interacting with them either, they should be global. Like if a player focuses on Alex, they should be able to max out her story before moving on to another girl without it impacting the game. Please, every update is just a constant slog of trying things randomly, not having them work, and getting absolutely nowhere. Scrap the time warp, it sucks. The guide is also waaaaay to hard to follow. There's no way to fix it. You have the animations, just rewrite the story and fix the mechanic to something more standard. You do this, and the programming will be much more simplified, and advancing the story will become much faster. You tried a while back with a half measure, and it was just a clunky mess. No more half measures. You've been working on this game for a while now, you must have an idea that going with a linear story would stop all of the confusion and avoid most of the bugs. Please, seriously consider it.

Earlier on in development I ran some tests on what this sort of game would look like, and it was possible. I have some fans that really want to enjoy the game and it hurts me that I have made it in such a way that they can't. At the end of the day though the community voted to continue the game as is, and that is what I have done.

I do eventually want to rework the game into an alternate mode that is essentially a kinetic novel for all the people like yourself who can't enjoy the way I have made it. It's the best compromise I can make considering that I can only make one game.

 

[LoneKaiser]

As someone who loves time loop games, I'm gladly looking forward to more stuff added to this game. If there's an in-game explanation of why there is one, cool. If there's not, big whoop. I'm still planning on enjoying the game.

Jenny is best girl (Prey route). I have her as the Predator to see if I can get the dream sequence but either I'm doing SOMETHING wrong or it's not part of the game yet. I've no idea. Still best girl.

I'd love to see more Sami (normally not a fan of sporty girls but she intrigues me) and Carla content other than that (Carla is honestly mostly due to her special stat).

Lisa looks like she might be interesting with more content, Lin doesn't really interest me (yet) and Cassidy... might be interesting. Who knows. Do like her design, at least.
I have somehow not gotten the Lin kiss yet and I'm still figuring that one out. Hm.

Lina looks like she could be interesting to deal with down the line - the hypnosis seems to be more effective on her than Jenny, which... I can only assume is intentional. Might not be. I've no idea.
I tried to get them both to have the same amount of points but Lina seemed to be affected while Jenny wasn't. I've no idea what her missing Nerve is (between the footjob and the buttjob).

Alex, while I do like the fact she has plenty of content is not too interesting for me. I do like the fact that she's into BE but she's not very interesting for me as a character. Might become better down the line, who knows? Only thing left there is the Boobslam...

I'm trying to figure out how to get the selfie from Haily mentioned in her corruption as mine is grayed out (which I assume means I don't have it, since the ones I do have are all green).

Other than that, I only have two achievements left (The Beginning and What Was That? - neither of which I seem to be able to pull off...)


Some stuff I have noticed that slightly annoys me is a lot of typos (mostly to vs too - "too" is in addition to something, "to" means "heading towards".)
E.g: I am going TO the bathroom vs I am going to take a bath, TOO.

Still, I find the game interesting so I'm gonna keep an eye out for more content.

 

[zacman200]

Hey a question, is the patch really not made by the dev, am just wondering as why would they post it in with their game

 

[NakedSingularity]

Hey a question, is the patch really not made by the dev, am just wondering as why would they post it in with their game

Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. Dunno why it matters who made it, as long as it works as intended and Patreon and other sites remain stupid then mission accomplished. In a perfect world circumvention patches would be unnecessary, but as long as idiotic TOS's exist it is what it is.

 

[zacman200]

also, am playing through and know how to get in the beginning, but i can't seem to get it to happen, do i need to have a certain corruption level to trigger it? also am also trying to get the "what was that" but even with instructions it's not triggering for me, what's the point where you have to roll back?

 

[Nunu312]

Hey a question, is the patch really not made by the dev, am just wondering as why would they post it in with their game

According to patreon rules, your are basically banned from depicting several things in your art. Some of these are very obvious, rape, pedophilia, etc. but they have also chosen to include incest on this list. You are allowed some wiggle room on these things as this is art, but essentially you aren't allowed to sexualise these things. For example you can show rape, but not in a way where people will masturbate to it. This then carries over to your behavior on other sites, and I cannot endorse any such third party mods as that would be tantamount to me effectively making such things myself.

However the rules of F95 Zone explicitly state that if I were to any content from here, I would forfeit control of this thread. This is generally about pirated links and such but absolutely goes for patches and mods as well.

So if there happens to be an incest patch, even though it may have been around since essentially day 1, I'm not allowed to get rid of it... Oh no...

As for the achievement, When the lady appears is the key point, and you only have to roll back a few lines.

 

[zacman200]

According to patreon rules, your are basically banned from depicting several things in your art. Some of these are very obvious, rape, pedophilia, etc. but they have also chosen to include incest on this list. You are allowed some wiggle room on these things as this is art, but essentially you aren't allowed to sexualise these things. For example you can show rape, but not in a way where people will masturbate to it. This then carries over to your behavior on other sites, and I cannot endorse any such third party mods as that would be tantamount to me effectively making such things myself.

However the rules of F95 Zone explicitly state that if I were to any content from here, I would forfeit control of this thread. This is generally about pirated links and such but absolutely goes for patches and mods as well.

So if there happens to be an incest patch, even though it may have been around since essentially day 1, I'm not allowed to get rid of it... Oh no...

As for the achievement, When the lady appears is the key point, and you only have to roll back a few lines.

I've attempted to roll back, but i don't know where I'm supposed to roll back from, as it's not very clear on which point your meant to rollback after the event, I've tried from multiple spots at least 10 times each

 

[LoneKaiser]

I've attempted to roll back, but i don't know where I'm supposed to roll back from, as it's not very clear on which point your meant to rollback after the event, I've tried from multiple spots at least 10 times each

Got it earlier today.
On Saturday at Midnight, go to the forest. Watch the scene and choose approach. Once it ends (next day starts), roll back until you get the option to approach or leave - choose to approach again. Keep doing this a few times and it'll proc.

 

[zacman200]

by next day start do you mean when it says Sunday early morning or when you wake up in the bedroom?

 

[LoneKaiser]

by next day start do you mean when it sayssunday early morning or when you wake up in the bedroom?

When it says Early Morning (as in, the black screen).

 

[zacman200]

ok, though how many attempts does it take to trigger, am curently on attempt number 7

 

[LoneKaiser]

ok, though how many attempts does it take to trigger, am curently on attempt number 7

No idea. I fast forwarded all the time; if you encounter a woman (you'll see a shadow of her), it should take a few more tries.

Note that this isn't the scene where you meet with Lina. This is another one.

If there's no mist, the scene won't trigger on that loop (from what I've seen, anyway), though what causes the mist to start with, I do not know.

 

[zacman200]

i honestly cannot get this to work, it feels like I'm just doing an random action over 30 times and nothing is happening, I can get the fog and a girl dancing in the background, but i can't get the dialogue to change, I can't get whatever this shadow is meant to be, and I can't get ether the beginning OR what was that to work, what the heck am I doing wrong? I'm fallowing the instructions given and yet nothing happens

 

[LoneKaiser]

i honestly cannot get this to work, it feels like I'm just doing an random action over 30 times and nothing is happening, I can get the fog and a girl dancing in the background, but i can't get the dialogue to change, I can't get whatever this shadow is meant to be, and I can't get ether the beginning OR what was that to work, what the heck am I doing wrong? I'm fallowing the instructions given and yet nothing happens

If the mist appears, choose to approach.
Once it says "Sunday (Early Morning)", roll back to the dialogue choice (using your scroll wheel) and choose "Approach" again. That's what I did and after a few tries, a shadow woman appeared. A few more runs later, it happened.

 

[zacman200]

you keep saying approach, but all i get is the option to "move closer", also i've been attempting this dang achievement for over 4 hours now and still nothing, what is going on?

 

[LoneKaiser]

you keep saying approach, but all i get is the option to "move closer", also i've been attempting this dang achievement for over 4 hours now and still nothing, what is going on?

Approach and move closer mean the same thing. I forgot what it said, that's all.

If you don't have it triggered by now, I have no idea what's going on.

Here's the guide that I followed:

"The achievement is related to rollback mechanics, a standard feature of Renpy. What you need to do is to pick the "Move closer" option and go through the dialogue until it transitions into the next timeslot. After that, rollback the text all the way back to the "Move closer" option, and pick it again. Repeat this process until done."

 

[CTR -X]

Played through the first two loops, and I really enjoy this game. I was just disappointed when I discovered there aren't any sex scenes yet. When those start cumming out I'll give it another go. Great job so far though Nunu!