Ren'Py Corrupted Kingdoms [v0.22.3d] [ArcGames]

[RagnaDemo]

\

The war on good content never changes, does it.


Sigh.

 

[RagnaDemo]

Hope so. No idea. He's been 'fixing' things for most of the last two years - but there were no problems with it when he decided to fix it so ... wait and see I guess.

I mean I don't find them terrible, it's not 4K hyper realistic graphics or whatever, but it's the lore that's got me hooked, so I can't complain much. Besides, some of them have grown on me anyhow, and I'm not a very picky person anyways.

IMO it's flaws for me what make them unique in a sense- not damnable flaws where it's what the fuck, but flaws where you can kind of associate it with said character. Just a me thing.

 

[Pixillin']

I mean I don't find them terrible, it's not 4K hyper realistic graphics or whatever, but it's the lore that's got me hooked, so I can't complain much. Besides, some of them have grown on me anyhow, and I'm not a very picky person anyways.

IMO it's flaws for me what make them unique in a sense- not damnable flaws where it's what the fuck, but flaws where you can kind of associate it with said character. Just a me thing.

I get that. If the lore/story weren't good I don't think we'd be having this conversation. The problem is that I can't help thinking that all of these constant "fixes" - months and months of technical tinkering that usually doesn't amount to an improvement, just something slightly different, make me wonder if Arc knows how the story goes in Act 3. The story has barely moved in the last two years. Most of it has been "here's a new lewd scene, now I'm going to spend a few months tinkering with the sound and the character models". He's been working on the current technical update since January. I've seen the list of what's included so far and the most interesting thing on the list is some new clothes for some of the lis.

 

[BTX19]

yall are forgetting the mother daughter side characters you can pick up and if you recall you can get with both in the same bed at the same time. incest doesn't have to be between the mc and a partner to qualify for a content tag.

to be fair, it depends on the Country if Mother& Daughter is incest. But correct me if I'm wrong, because it is ~3 decades ago a looked into it.

 

[Ben's Franking]

I wonder if there are other Ren'Py games like this.

 

[DarkExecutive]

Most of the missteps of this game's development have been due to overcompensating from player feedback.

• Players gave feedback that the gameplay was too generic. Dev responds by making a MASSIVE update that changes the gameplay significantly in ways no one wanted.
• Players gave feedback that no story progress was being made. Dev responds with an update that advances the story to Act 3, completely cutting off the content people enjoyed that was present in Act 2.
• Players gave feedback that updates were too frequent and lacked content. Dev responds by pausing updates to cook up another big update that is taking forever.

This is like "Be Careful What You Wish For: The Game".

 

[Pixillin']

Most of the missteps of this game's development have been due to overcompensating from player feedback.

• Players gave feedback that the gameplay was too generic. Dev responds by making a MASSIVE update that changes the gameplay significantly in ways no one wanted.
• Players gave feedback that no story progress was being made. Dev responds with an update that advances the story to Act 3, completely cutting off the content people enjoyed that was present in Act 2.
• Players gave feedback that updates were too frequent and lacked content. Dev responds by pausing updates to cook up another big update that is taking forever.

This is like "Be Careful What You Wish For: The Game".

except as far as I can tell, the current big update contains no new content- updates to the code, UI, sound and character models but if there’s any new content at all he hasn’t mentioned it.

 

[JAvatar]

except as far as I can tell, the current big update contains no new content- updates to the code, UI, sound and character models but if there’s any new content at all he hasn’t mentioned it.

It's almost like the dev needs a working underlying system to implement the changes he has in store.

 

[Pixillin']

It's almost like the dev needs a working underlying system to implement the changes he has in store.

Sure, but the bulk of the last two years has been spent on "underlying systems".

 

[JAvatar]

Sure, but the bulk of the last two years has been spent on "underlying systems".

And fixing the messed up underlying systems, like the UI issues. I mean, the Act 2 to Act 3 changes were huge, and he's been trying to improve them(the battle systems), plus who knows what else under the hood. He's also not a professional programmer, nor does he have a huge team, meaning a lot of learn as you go and self quality check.

This is something I like to point out: Metroid Samus Returns was a remake on the Nintendo 3DS of Metroid II: Return of Samus for the original gameboy. MercurySteam developed the game in conjunction with Nintendo. They used their Mercury Engine, the program engine they created and used on other games, such as Castlevania Mirror of Fate, meaning the baseline mechanics were already there. You can see the similarities between those two games in particular. What we know is it was a (quoting) "significant undertaking" involving both companies, so not some tiny team. A team, using the engine they created, remaking an old game hand-in-hand with the original game's developers, took 5 years to make the game.

Arc doesn't have those kinds of resources, so two years making the under-the-hood work? Not really unreasonable.

 

[yoyomistro]

And fixing the messed up underlying systems, like the UI issues. I mean, the Act 2 to Act 3 changes were huge, and he's been trying to improve them(the battle systems), plus who knows what else under the hood. He's also not a professional programmer, nor does he have a huge team, meaning a lot of learn as you go and self quality check.

This is something I like to point out: Metroid Samus Returns was a remake on the Nintendo 3DS of Metroid II: Return of Samus for the original gameboy. MercurySteam developed the game in conjunction with Nintendo. They used their Mercury Engine, the program engine they created and used on other games, such as Castlevania Mirror of Fate, meaning the baseline mechanics were already there. You can see the similarities between those two games in particular. What we know is it was a (quoting) "significant undertaking" involving both companies, so not some tiny team. A team, using the engine they created, remaking an old game hand-in-hand with the original game's developers, took 5 years to make the game.

Arc doesn't have those kinds of resources, so two years making the under-the-hood work? Not really unreasonable.

Arc has had issues from the jump, and most of them are due to poor planning, not lack of resources, especially considering most of the initial characters in the game were lifted from others' work without permission.

 

[Xotanyx]

Arc doesn't have those kinds of resources, so two years making the under-the-hood work? Not really unreasonable.

Apples to oranges comparison would be me putting it lightly.

There is absolutely no way a ren'py based VN is anywhere as complex as a 3DS remake on a brand new engine of an ancient (in tech years) GBA game. There are so many differences in that example and this project listing them seems redundant, but I can if you insist.

The most glaring ones to make my point is that the staff that worked on Metroid 2 and the remake are not the same, neither was the engine, nor the hardware. CK is the same guy, same engine, same experience all the way through. Now, it is 100% correct that he is not as experienced as any of those professionals, but he doesn't need to be for the scope of this project.

The reason this project has stalled out is because of random, unneeded changes. It would be as if in Samus Returns they decided they needed to add a 3D racing minigame to progress from screen to screen, and then burnt years of dev time and resources chasing this bizarre vision.

Although I disagree with your example, I do understand your point. Solo deving is hard and its not unreasonable that the project has stalled. The unreasonable part is the way the time is being utilized. This isn't the first time the dev has done this. If you search the thread, you'll find complaints and screenshots of when the dev downgraded/changed all the KK models for the girls for seemingly no reason. Thats a decent amount of effort spent recklessly. EDIT: The post above mine actually answers this and was posted as I was composing my own. That specific example can be safely disregarded, I somehow missed that while trawling the thread.

Whether it be perfectionism, a lack of proper idea of what to do next, overestimating ones own abilities, sheer laziness, burnout, or some combination of all, the end result is the game isn't being progressed in a tangible way. I personally remain hopeful something will change, but realistic in my expectations that nothing will. Perhaps one day a proper, high quality update will be released once more.

 

[Pixillin']

And fixing the messed up underlying systems, like the UI issues. I mean, the Act 2 to Act 3 changes were huge, and he's been trying to improve them(the battle systems), plus who knows what else under the hood. He's also not a professional programmer, nor does he have a huge team, meaning a lot of learn as you go and self quality check.

This is something I like to point out: Metroid Samus Returns was a remake on the Nintendo 3DS of Metroid II: Return of Samus for the original gameboy. MercurySteam developed the game in conjunction with Nintendo. They used their Mercury Engine, the program engine they created and used on other games, such as Castlevania Mirror of Fate, meaning the baseline mechanics were already there. You can see the similarities between those two games in particular. What we know is it was a (quoting) "significant undertaking" involving both companies, so not some tiny team. A team, using the engine they created, remaking an old game hand-in-hand with the original game's developers, took 5 years to make the game.

Arc doesn't have those kinds of resources, so two years making the under-the-hood work? Not really unreasonable.

Most of it is excuses at this point. There was a functioning game before he began re-working it the problem is that he's had to re-work some things several times either because they didn't work as intended or because they were very poorly received. Redoing the combat system was one example, but most of the changes he made last year to the UI, models and sound were lateral moves at best and downgrades in several cases and from what I've seen from the outline of the changes he's working on currently, he didn't understand what it was that people didn't like and is making some of the same mistakes, but differently.

Don't get me wrong, Arc seems like a good guy, obviously has good intentions and is good at the storytelling part. However, this was supposed to be a quick game to establish a name for himself so he could do more ambitious things and I think that ship has sort of sailed. It's going to end up taking the better part of a decade start to finish, a lot of people are losing patience and I know that when/if he starts a new game that I won't jump in and give it a try until it's pretty close to completion.

 

[the-god-destroyer]

Arc has had issues from the jump, and most of them are due to poor planning, not lack of resources, especially considering most of the initial characters in the game were lifted from others' work without permission.

oh grand so he's like another developer i know who stole stuff.

 

[yoyomistro]

oh grand so he's like another developer i know who stole stuff.

Yea it was a whole saga... he just jacked literally almost every single model he used uncredited, without permission, and when he was found out, turned out he was ass at making his own characters...

 

[Chuongduy73]

is there anyway to turn off the horrid sounds of diolouge running

 

[Pixillin']

is there anyway to turn off the horrid sounds of diolouge running

I play this, and most things, with the sound muted. I don't need it and it's a minus more often than it's a plus.

 

[RagnaDemo]

I get that. If the lore/story weren't good I don't think we'd be having this conversation. The problem is that I can't help thinking that all of these constant "fixes" - months and months of technical tinkering that usually doesn't amount to an improvement, just something slightly different, make me wonder if Arc knows how the story goes in Act 3. The story has barely moved in the last two years. Most of it has been "here's a new lewd scene, now I'm going to spend a few months tinkering with the sound and the character models". He's been working on the current technical update since January. I've seen the list of what's included so far and the most interesting thing on the list is some new clothes for some of the lis.

Fair enough.

I get that want for new stuff, and frankly, I'm a bit eager too, since it's been what-maybe two years since I've gotten into this and I'm HOOKED. As in 'check development logs every now and again-see if something about the lore's up on the horizon. I'm happy to wait if it meant we'd get something at least, but with other games, I always say, if it takes a very long while just to get a grain of game then I'm gonna dip my finger in another pie.

Cruel, yea, but if I've to wait, Imma find something else to occupy that void until the glorious game's back into the fray, and even then I might wait just a bit to let some other things pile up atop that update, so that I don't run out of lore all in the same week, if not the single day.

 

[RagnaDemo]

Most of it is excuses at this point. There was a functioning game before he began re-working it the problem is that he's had to re-work some things several times either because they didn't work as intended or because they were very poorly received. Redoing the combat system was one example, but most of the changes he made last year to the UI, models and sound were lateral moves at best and downgrades in several cases and from what I've seen from the outline of the changes he's working on currently, he didn't understand what it was that people didn't like and is making some of the same mistakes, but differently.

Don't get me wrong, Arc seems like a good guy, obviously has good intentions and is good at the storytelling part. However, this was supposed to be a quick game to establish a name for himself so he could do more ambitious things and I think that ship has sort of sailed. It's going to end up taking the better part of a decade start to finish, a lot of people are losing patience and I know that when/if he starts a new game that I won't jump in and give it a try until it's pretty close to completion.

Unfortunately, I can understand your point of view, and sadly I too might be on that boat. I love the storytelling and such, but it's really agonizing to wait, even though I got the patience of a snail at the best of times.

 

[Pixillin']

Unfortunately, I can understand your point of view, and sadly I too might be on that boat. I love the storytelling and such, but it's really agonizing to wait, even though I got the patience of a snail at the best of times.

And normally, as a rule, I don't complain about the time between updates. I don't want the dev to rush, especially if it means they have to fix it later but just in general I want them to take the time to tell the story the way they want to. However, in this case, it's gotten a bit silly. If you go back to when act 3 started, the list of content updates has been small and most of the last two years has been spent on mechanics, UI, sound updates, new models, combat systems etc. The story has barely moved and most of the mechanical/UI/Sound stuff doesn't really feel like an improvement: Different, but not better.