VN Ren'Py Abandoned California Bound [v0.0.6 early access] [Suo Mynona]

3.30 star(s) 4 Votes

Amahl Farouk

Well-Known Member
May 13, 2018
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I want absolutely utterly corrupted path as i managed to find nicely in good girl gone bad. Lots of players like to keep em sweet or have them stick a toe in. I go full dark side :)
 
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suo_mynona

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Nov 3, 2017
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I want absolutely utterly corrupted path as i managed to find nicely in good girl gone bad. Lots of players like to keep em sweet or have them stick a toe in. I go full dark side :)
I'm handling corruption differently than most games. In CB corruption represents Emily's willingness to use herself or others to get what she wants. It's not tied to sex but seeing others as nothing more than tools.

In the Alex paths only one of them involves corruption even though they both contain a lot of sex.
 

suo_mynona

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Nov 3, 2017
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I still hate the pace and uselessness of some of the paths, especially the one at the bar: there you should build a sort of slow corruption path that makes some sense and that you can use to link to other (advanced) paths.
When I decided to restart the game I decided not to fill in Emily's backstory before game start. Instead, your initial choices help decide what kind of person Emily is. Once that's in place the story is about the consequences of those choices. Neither of the coffee shop Alex paths are corruption paths. In one, the corruption started pre-game and now Emily has begun the game as a whore. In the other, her repressed submissive desires are released and she decides to explore them.

The real corruption paths aren't in the game yet and will branch off what initially look like pure paths.

Think about the first few days as you helping to decide what kind of person Emily is; then we'll start the story.
 

Mwanted

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Oct 1, 2017
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When I decided to restart the game I decided not to fill in Emily's backstory before game start. Instead, your initial choices help decide what kind of person Emily is. Once that's in place the story is about the consequences of those choices. Neither of the coffee shop Alex paths are corruption paths. In one, the corruption started pre-game and now Emily has begun the game as a whore. In the other, her repressed submissive desires are released and she decides to explore them.

The real corruption paths aren't in the game yet and will branch off what initially look like pure paths.

Think about the first few days as you helping to decide what kind of person Emily is; then we'll start the story.
Ok, that's one way to look at it. But you're basically saying she starts corrupted and ends in a gameover soon after: where's the fun in that? Wouldn't have been better to make her start as the same character and just add (or better yet, incorporate) that path (an extensive version of it) to the rest of them? For me that's a rhetorical question.
 

suo_mynona

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Nov 3, 2017
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Ok, that's one way to look at it. But you're basically saying she starts corrupted and ends in a gameover soon after: where's the fun in that?
No, I didn't say that. I said it wasn't the corruption path. I also didn't say the path would end quickly. I said it was where we get to explore the consequences of those choices. Growth has to start somewhere. Who knows, maybe thats the path to redemption...
 

Rakger

Newbie
May 25, 2017
67
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@myuhinny Yep that's about it for this version, if you can call it a version. Personally, IMHO, that it is simply a way for the dev to redirect people to get more money although checking out his P page he seems to be working on it but no firm date on when it will be playable, with good content, is going to be out. Not quite sure how he could create a "game" with 3x the size file download with so little content unless he vastly increased the size of his renders. Don't get me wrong, what he has is written well and the renders are top notch so he can write and get your attention with great renders. I just don't happen to agree with the way he did it is all. I think when he gets back on track this will be a great game. I also hope that he will release the first real version 0.0.6 it will be completely free due to the fact that right now it's for Patrons only and they don't seem to be getting much yet either.
I hope Alex isn't serving instant coffee ie: Nescafe
 

Bagger288

Active Member
Jul 11, 2017
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Not having played the sandbox version before, I found the VN formulation of the game to be a little overwhelming and too fast-paced (symptomatic of having been dead ends?). The three branches that currently exist don't feel like they star the same main character, and as more branches are realized, it'll be difficult to get a grip on the game as a whole - unless they merge back somehow. The stories make a little more sense in a sandbox context, but then they would still be incompatible - so I guess the best suggestion I can offer is to stretch the time between e.g. the girl arriving for coffee and getting sold from one week to like six.

The game currently doesn't have stats, which fits a shorter game with a lot of branches. That might be a good fit for the game going forward. edit: I see this is the plan.

edit: It's worth mentioning that based on the title, I expected this to be another BDSM game - which it (mostly) did not turn out to be.
 

Amahl Farouk

Well-Known Member
May 13, 2018
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Well, I will definitely keep an eye on it, if you can do as good a job as eva with GGGB but using good renders as you have shown you can, I will be in love with the game
 

riddikk91

Well-Known Member
Apr 22, 2017
1,017
1,612
Hmmm... anyone heard anything from - or about - Suo since his last post here & Patreon back in July?

Maybe he's lost interest in the game due to the loss of interest from Patrons (like me...:frown:)... I still like the possibilities of corruption in the story.
 

suo_mynona

Member
Game Developer
Nov 3, 2017
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308
I'm still here. I've ran into a newbie game creator issue and have been doing some internal development/exploring in trying to figure how to solve the problem.

The problem: Each image render takes several hours to complete which at first was fine; however, as the story branches started to increase the time required to advance each day became too much.

I've tried several options and have decided to go back to a more sandbox/RPG approach. I also didn't like how RenPy favors mostly images with little text. I'd prefer to have a story that contains text/story the focus. I've always looked at California Bound as an adult story that tackles adult themes and not some porn for porn sake thing. I've been looking at different game engines and doing small test development with each. I think I've settled on using Twine/SugarCube and have started rewriting California Bound using it. The pace of development is much faster and I love the focus of telling the story with text. Most of the old content is already in place and I've almost finished the downtown locations: Hotel, Movie Cinema, Sex Shop, Coffee Shop, Photo Studio, Alex Apartment, Alondra Apartment, Darren Apartment. Once that is complete, I'll release for feedback and start working on the Hollywood area locations.

Current capability:
- An inventory system
- Hunger/Tired game logic
- Experience system for jobs...and other experiences

I'm currently working on a dynamic quest system that will have a notebook showing the current status of each quest with hints for the next step. This is how I plan on driving the story arcs forward as each quest must be completed before the next stage is made available. This allows for the same thing as branching plot lines with ability for player to advance multiple plots at the same time or jump from one plot line to another.

This way the play can just play the game going to work, buying food, buying furniture for apartment, etc. If the player wants, they can do quests to go to school, become a model, or just opt out and do their own thing.

This way I can make each release add new repeatable features to the game and not just 5 minutes of game play for whatever plot branch you're playing. Hope this helps.
 

muttdoggy

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Staff member
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Aug 6, 2016
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It does help. Let us know when you're done with the new version/engine.
 

somguy

Newbie
Jun 17, 2017
92
75
I've been releasing testing versions to Patreon folks while I try out the new engine. When I've recreated all the old content using the new engine, I'll post that release here.
Sigh, so not renpy now? Oh well, good luck but looks like it's a pass for me :(. When looking for new games renpy is the first thing I look for because it's user friendly (rollback, save anywhere, infinite saves, console etc). So many renpy remakes for that reason.
 

suo_mynona

Member
Game Developer
Nov 3, 2017
100
308
Sigh, so not renpy now? Oh well, good luck but looks like it's a pass for me :(. When looking for new games renpy is the first thing I look for because it's user friendly (rollback, save anywhere, infinite saves, console etc). So many renpy remakes for that reason.
I agree that RenPy is nice from the user perspective. From the developer perspective it had several things that lead to slow development.

1) The focus on images drastically slowed down development as each image took around 2 hours to render. Each scene had 6 to 12 images and was seen by the user in less than a minute of play time. I think that is why the RenPy abandonment rate was so high.

2) Text dialog as code. Spellcheck was so painful that I would first type all text in a separate document, spellcheck, and then manual copy and paste into RenPy adding the charX "<text> format. Twice the time.

Like I said, I'm experimenting. So far what I like:
  • Text is just text, spellcheck, ability to add HTML as needed, etc.
  • Code is just code and can be shoved off in a separate .js file.
  • Simple stuff can be a blend in a Markdown file.
I've already worked out saves and rollback. I'm hesitant to upload the test file here fully expecting the "What! There's no content!" comments...

How about this, I'll put a link to the test build here in the comments for feedback. This test release contains a day/night cycle with hunger and energy needs, the initial tests of the quest system, a hotel that you can stay in if you can afford it, the underpass if you can't, and the start of the waitress quest at the Coffee Shop - no sex yet. There are a few dead links that you can just back out of. Also, I've added a character sheet and a notebook for tracking quests; however, the link sometimes breaks so I'm troubleshooting that as we speak. I've also stubbed out the Hollywood location where Max's apartment will be located.

For the text skimmers, The coffee shop job is only available at 8 AM or 1 PM.



-Suo
 
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3.30 star(s) 4 Votes