VN Ren'Py Cradle Beyond the Veil [v0.2.3b] [First Wish Studio]

[Crowangel]

love the concept so far... similar to a story i wrote years ago so its interesting to see how it develops

 

[aFairReviewer]

Just finished the current version and I am seeing a lot one-star reviews, but the lowest I'll go to is probably three stars. It almost made me shy away from trying this game. Though I am not a fan of rushed h scenes with no build up and sure the writing is a bit off putting.... but there's effort made with offering player interactivity. Choices hide when players clicked on it already to avoid repetitive interactions which is a plus. Visually the dev had at least tried with the details and custom textures on the clothing and skin. The visual does have some inconsistencies with the post processing of the renders. I'm not shaming the other reviewers on their rating, but I am curious to see what their 3–5-star games are.

 

[pitao]

Just finished the current version and I am seeing a lot one-star reviews, but the lowest I'll go to is probably three stars. It almost made me shy away from trying this game. Though I am not a fan of rushed h scenes with no build up and sure the writing is a bit off putting.... but there's effort made with offering player interactivity. Choices hide when players clicked on it already to avoid repetitive interactions which is a plus. Visually the dev had at least tried with the details and custom textures on the clothing and skin. The visual does have some inconsistencies with the post processing of the renders. I'm not shaming the other reviewers on their rating, but I am curious to see what their 3–5-star games are.

For me visually this is 5 stars alone, but on overall and with just 1 story chapter/episode (the first release is more like a technical demo like a somewhat short prologue) I would rate it 3.5-4 stars with potential for much more and with a bit more understanding of the story and some tweaks/improvements here and there easily reach somewhere in between 4-5 stars.

 

[Nuverotic]

Honey Select 2? You can do this with HS2? Interesting...

I like Daz because of the endless amount of content/assets out there but getting proper jiggle physics on them is impossible. Without frame by frame editing in the worst animation editor around...

I really wish Daz would stop milking free money from content creators and update their engine. Daz content with proper animation tools, physics and render times would be PHENOMENAL.

Anyway, this game's animations look great. I only played like 20 minutes of HS2 so I didn't know it had capabilities outside of room choices and generic sex scenes.

 

[Sterkh90]

An extremely rare combination: Honey Select 2 and a normal looking male character. For this alone the devs can be praised.

 

[1stWish]

Just finished the current version and I am seeing a lot one-star reviews, but the lowest I'll go to is probably three stars.

Appreciate the fair take.

As for that 1-star review (and one of the 2-stars) — it’s hard to take them seriously when they come from accounts with zero messages history on the forum and no rating.

Shame there’s no system here like on Newgrounds, where trusted users actually carry more weight.

 

[Wicked Whip]

I've played the demo before and now I played the 0.2.2 release. My comments below are about the content past the demo.

Superb graphics - models, lighting, textures, poses, expressions... really on par with the likes of Eternum. And then the animations! Holy shit!
It's clear the devs are very skilled in those areas.
I think there could be more background music - especially inside the Cradle 'server'.

My main gripe with the game is the story (more or less a commented playthrough):

Spoiler

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- The last part is a lot of exposition dump that could be better summarized. It goes on and on... It adds a neat twist to the story, though.

I also spotted a bunch of typos and period-less sentences.
Also, where's the gallery?

This game has incredible potential, but the story needs some trimming and tidying up.

I might disagree with a few of the points in the quoted spoiler post above, but it does address most of the criticisms I have here.

A lot of information about Cradle's origins are just dumped onto the screen. It is a complex and grand conspiracy given to me all at once in an underwhelming scene. This makes the worldbuilding much less mysterious. I read everything, but some others may just skip dialog for this reason, especially as they take information through a dragging history presentation. Plot pacing is probably the most glaring issue, and to add to that, developing interests for interesting characters feels like an unimportant task since the main character is a bit too trusting and way too forgiving. I can already see this problem with Elizabeth, who is probably going to become a very deceptive and annoying character to deal with since she expects too much and offers very little in return. I don't know if the MC is going to remain this softhearted throughout the entire story, but it will be a very frustrating to read through with an uninquisitive MC who forgives thieves and traitors on a whim.

It is not a 5 star AVN yet, but it is still a fine story. I should also say that the visuals look great. I don't have a problem with the models, their general appearances or clothing choices. Fit midriff is always sexy.

 

[Beast Within]

Honey Select 2? You can do this with HS2? Interesting...

I like Daz because of the endless amount of content/assets out there but getting proper jiggle physics on them is impossible. Without frame by frame editing in the worst animation editor around...

I really wish Daz would stop milking free money from content creators and update their engine. Daz content with proper animation tools, physics and render times would be PHENOMENAL.

Anyway, this game's animations look great. I only played like 20 minutes of HS2 so I didn't know it had capabilities outside of room choices and generic sex scenes.

sadly by the way daz is going whatever update they will make they will add it in the studio version which is subscription based. just like what they did with the latest mesh grabber. imho the best workflow a dev who wants to use daz, right now, is to implement blender in their workflow. I love hs2 engine personally though my issue with it is with the collisions. though I believe there is a mod to address that.

 

[pitao]

Appreciate the fair take.

As for that 1-star review (and one of the 2-stars) — it’s hard to take them seriously when they come from accounts with zero messages history on the forum and no rating.

Shame there’s no system here like on Newgrounds, where trusted users actually carry more weight.

I wonder if those no message accounts reviews are alternate accounts of people that don't want to "show their face" on a review if this is true then it is a bit sad imo.

I completely agree that the review system should be improved, I rely a bit on them when researching a new game I want to try but there wasn't much here to go on, so I read almost all the 8 pages of posts that were here at the time. I should have write reviews of games but I'm very hard on myself after write them and read them.

When I read a review I expect them to be objective and with the least personal bias it can have, that is why I keep not sending my reviews of games, I'm too subjective and biased for my own taste on my reviews when I read them and keep not sending them in the end because I rate my own reviews as bad lol. I'm not a good writer and have difficulties to put into words my thoughts, just a decent experienced reader I would say.

This game was on my watchlist since February because of the quality of the previous work on animations of Brutalisk that are unquestionable regardless of its content, that isn't relevant really. Also because I'm a huge fan of sci-fi and fantasy, but with just a technical demo I preferred to wait for at least 1 update with some story/plot to give it a try.

Like I said I love sci-fi and fantasy and I'm wondering if this story/plot (will) take some inspiration from works of movies like Ready Player One (That I believe Eternum also take a bit from it), Inception and The Matrix and maybe other stories I'm not recalling right now.

I have many crazy and very speculative ideas and theories to where the plot can go in future updates, and I have debated it with a great friend on this site on DMs, but with just 1 story/plot content I refrain to expose them here on this public game thread, at least for now, maybe I'm waiting for someone to start a topic like that and don't want to start it with my crazy very speculative ideas .

 

[Pixillin']

I just played through for the first time, and there were bits I liked a lot and bits I wasn't as keen on but I don't understand how people can even write reviews at this stage. It's kinda like reviewing a movie after watching the first ten minutes. I've played things that I hated so much that I stopped playing them after a few chapters, but I didn't review them.

 

[sexypeanut]

I just played through for the first time, and there were bits I liked a lot and bits I wasn't as keen on but I don't understand how people can even write reviews at this stage. It's kinda like reviewing a movie after watching the first ten minutes. I've played things that I hated so much that I stopped playing them after a few chapters, but I didn't review them.

Because we want to show the devs how we feel about the game. If reviews are given only for completed games, it'd be too late for the devs to fix bugs or amend plot holes.

 

[Pixillin']

Because we want to show the devs how we feel about the game. If reviews are given only for completed games, it'd be too late for the devs to fix bugs or amend plot holes.

Doesn't have to be completed, but I'll wait at least long enough for them to get into the meat of the story.

 

[wiseold6996]

Doesn't have to be completed, but I'll wait at least long enough for them to get into the meat of the story.

We can already tell there are some issues the dev can improve upon. No need to go the meat of the story. Like some dialogue and pacing issues.

 

[1stWish]

Like I said I love sci-fi and fantasy and I'm wondering if this story/plot (will) take some inspiration from works of movies like Ready Player One (That I believe Eternum also take a bit from it), Inception and The Matrix and maybe other stories I'm not recalling right now.

I'll tweak that a bit...
3 Body Problem, with a flavor of Love, Death & Robots and also a tiny bit of Oblivion (2013).

I doubt you missed Love, Death & Robots, but 3 Body Problem is one that may slip by — and if you’re into sci-fi, I’d definitely call it a must-watch.

There’s more... but I can’t really bring it up yet, since we haven’t reached those parts of the universe (and probably won’t for a few more updates).

As for the early exposition — yeah, we went hard with the lore dump in this update.
That was a deliberate choice.
We wanted to lay out some of the key ideas upfront, to give players a shot at piecing together the bigger picture early on.

Could we have spread it out better? Probably.
But we felt it was important to show some of the deeper layers right away — and not just tease them endlessly.

 

[pitao]

I'll tweak that a bit...
3 Body Problem, with a flavor of Love, Death & Robots and also a tiny bit of Oblivion (2013).

I doubt you missed Love, Death & Robots, but 3 Body Problem is one that may slip by — and if you’re into sci-fi, I’d definitely call it a must-watch.

There’s more... but I can’t really bring it up yet, since we haven’t reached those parts of the universe (and probably won’t for a few more updates).

As for the early exposition — yeah, we went hard with the lore dump in this update.
That was a deliberate choice.
We wanted to lay out some of the key ideas upfront, to give players a shot at piecing together the bigger picture early on.

Could we have spread it out better? Probably.
But we felt it was important to show some of the deeper layers right away — and not just tease them endlessly.

Of course I saw Oblivion and it is on my sci-fi movie collection.

3 Body Problem (Searching about it since never heard about it), and Love, Death & Robots (I did miss it but heard about it) are shows and in the last 10 years I didn't invest much on them because simply don't have the time for them (and I prefer to binge watch them).

Only watch a very few selected shows like Westworld, The Expanse, Black Mirror that is also anthology stories like LDR and The Mandalorian just because I'm a SW die hard fan. And was hard to find the time to watch them. Movies are still my preferred medium and have a more and less large collection of them.

So yeah would need to watch those shows to understand better the direction/inspiration of the story haha.

I don't think there is too much exposition, actually I think we have very few because we are sent to the middle of events/plot with very few background story what makes those events a bit confusing to understand, very very few character background specially in the LI's that beside Elizabeth and maybe Mia we know almost anything about them, well even Mia we don't know much.

is the Elf in the dream just a dream? or we will see her again (that is why I mentioned Inception if you know what I mean hehe), and the same with the neighbor (even can't remember her name lol) and we will see her again? or we get "stuck" in the cradle and was just a cameo char? Most exposition we get is the interesting background story on how the cradle came to existence and I enjoyed it.

Edit: Also got aware from searching about 3 Body Problem that is an adaptation from a Novel, I can count in the fingers of my hand sci-fi novels I read and most were over 20 years ago. It is a genre that I eventually get bored reading, for me sci fi is a visual thing and I wish I had more time to watch all the tv shows around, but have my movies, probably over near 200 of them in my collection if I count the pirated ones lol.

 

[bigdickwaterland]

I liked the game. The story, characters, and animation are great. The game's creator or team is amazing.

 

[1stWish]

is the Elf in the dream just a dream? or we will see her again (that is why I mentioned Inception if you know what I mean hehe), and the same with the neighbor (even can't remember her name lol) and we will see her again? or we get "stuck" in the cradle and was just a cameo char? Most exposition we get is the interesting background story on how the cradle came to existence and I enjoyed it.

Someone confidently assumed we’ll meet Mel (Meluel, the Elf Maiden) inside the Cradle...
Well… it’s not quite that simple with her. We placed that puzzle into the universe, but it’s far less straightforward than most would guess. (Inception is actually a better assumption.)

As for the other characters — almost no one shows up without a reason, unless they’re nameless background NPCs.
Most encounters are more like teasers than one-off cameos.
Well… maybe with a few exceptions. Like the sausage cart boss.

 

[pitao]

Someone confidently assumed we’ll meet Mel (Meluel, the Elf Maiden) inside the Cradle...
Well… it’s not quite that simple with her. We placed that puzzle into the universe, but it’s far less straightforward than most would guess. (Inception is actually a better assumption.)

As for the other characters — almost no one shows up without a reason, unless they’re nameless background NPCs.
Most encounters are more like teasers than one-off cameos.
Well… maybe with a few exceptions. Like the sausage cart boss.

Yeah I figured was something like that, that Mel could be a character inside the cradle but my even more crazy theory was something like Inception where there is different levels of dreaming, dreams inside dreams, yeah I know is crazy and we are influenced/inspired by what we know and watched before hehe I wondered if when the MC "woke up" if it was just a dream inside that dream and what we really see in his "real life" was just a deeper level of the dream and that the MC would eventually wake up near Meluel again .

Now you understand why I didn't want to expose my theories in a public forum lmao because they are very far fetched and crazy and highly speculative mainly because there is still few story/plot and our mind wonders on really crazy stuff based on what we watched before, books movies shows and games.

I have a friend that mention that the guy that comes in the limo with 2 hot girls to the hotdog cart reminded him Keanu Reeves and I agreed and laughed and replied something like, yeah he even came directly from the matrix/cradle . I shared with my friend in DMs 2 or 3 crazy theories like the one in the first paragraph. We both enjoyed a lot the first chapter and we think there is a lot of potential in the story and room for plenty of improvements as well.

Keep up the good work 1stWish.

 

[Woodstock_1983]

I hate when Devs makes games with unreadable language without a description. I don't understand a word she's saying. They could've put the translations in ()'s at the bottom. I want to understand EVERYTHING.. I understand she's an elf but still have it where the players can understand them. Even Google translate couldn't help me. Now i have to sit here a long time to try to understand what is being said. I give up until translations are added.It's just gibberish if you ask me. But to understand Fantasy games or stories, you need to understand everything but you can't.

 

[*POP!*]

Going by the description, this game is all about the stuff i play these games for to NOT have to think about them.
It's very unhealthy to ponder over problems that are impossible for you to solve.