VN Ren'Py Crimson High [v0.44.1] [Vertigo]

[artofwar]

To be fair, it's only half of this update, but yeah it was all ready before the dev decided to split it into two. And this half is barely 25% bigger than the previous one. I don't like liars who takes money for their lies and that's the reason for me to drop this game and never support him on Patreon again.

That's the thing though. It was all ready, right?

If it was all ready, and if there was 4x the content almost 2 months ago... then not only should 0.45 be ready, but 0.46, 0.47 and 0.48 should be ready too. He should almost be done with 0.49. That's even taking the whole "4x normal" to be the LOW end of "normal."

So yeah, lies. I had a pretty scathing response to the initial decision to break it up, on the release of 0.44.1, but decided to hold off thinking that just maybe the guy was going for the dumbest christmas surprise ever where he dropped a 700-1k render update at the cost of his reputation taking a hit. In the worst case I was thinking that perhaps they'll be preparing multiple updates ahead of time and trying to fit a bit more into each of them, maybe get them out a little faster.

With the whole "I'm not working on anything right now" - "I need a well deserved break" bullshit though? Nope. Screw that, dude straight up lied.

 

[Ehmgeeaye]

i think it's a rather understandable time to take a break given it's christmas. it's not like it's the middle of april.

 

[Xotanyx]

i think it's a rather understandable time to take a break given it's christmas. it's not like it's the middle of april.

Normally I'd agree. However, the gap between releases was July 27th for 43.1 public, and November 29th for 44.0 Patreon. The previous* release schedule had been monthly updates. THAT'S where all the animosity is coming from. Especially since the dev claimed they were spending the same amount of time working. This update was supposedly 4x as big as usual to compensate for the 4x as long gestation period.

That leaves us with several possibilities to speculate on, such as he was faffing around, has the update but its unpolished, or is holding it back for some other reason.

Pulling a stunt like this was a terrible idea. Faith in the dev has been wanning hard. The last string of updates were all just MC recapping what had happened to every single member of the harem individually. Yes, you made an "update", but it's like when you just start putting quotes from wikipedia articles in your high school paper assignment because you can't think of the words to meet the page count.

 

[artofwar]

i think it's a rather understandable time to take a break given it's christmas. it's not like it's the middle of april.

Minimizing the issue down to "people don't like the dev taking a break at christmas" is a tad disingenuous, no?

 

[Roshtnal]

Everytime a vampire says, not right now i want to slam their head through a table. "Your something important" What is that "Not right now", "I know your mother who you didn't get any real time with" Can you tell me about her "not right now", "you have amazing super powers and harm can happen if you access them wrong", Explain, "not right now"

I'm only hear waiting for someone to open their God Damn MOUTH. The general character writing that isn't trying to build tension is good and I enjoy it, I'm at the Hot Spring Retreat and They promised divulging information and spent 80% of the first night saying things will be revealed tomorrow, then tomorrow comes and like two bullet points are revealed that could have been a side conversation. Do Better.

The real crux is the MC is not a driving force in the story but a tag along in a game, where people think they know better but end up just obfuscating mundane ass information he should have been told in a lore dump scene 30 scenes ago. If you don't even know the answers, Take a minute and define what he is, and those other steps, because right now it doesn't even feel the writer knows what's going on. The stage where MC should have been told things is when people realized what he was and that he was in danger, you cant respond to danger if you dont know the danger, and the only people who would hide such information are not worth trusting, the exception is like cognito hazards but you can tell someone that you cant say because information is a trigger for a something to happen. But none of the information kept from him has been anything other than "But I don't want to tell you right now" and sold like it made sense why it was hidden, at no point has it made sense.

In regards to kuro and his mom, it being difficult to talk about because of some regret or something would be respectable, but she gives no reason when she could give something human like that.

 

[Karnewarrior]

I do think the devs could use a sit-down, where they go over what information is *actually* necessary for the plot.

Also, if telling the protagonist about something might bring about the end of the VN, they should realize that they can, in fact, do that. Nobody said they can't finish the story in the next few updates. In fact, it doesn't even have to be the end of development.

You see, VNs have this mystical technique, forbidden by the ancient masters of indie development, called "routes" or "branching", where once one version of the story is completed, you can go back and give the player an alternative option for how the story ends. And if you don't want to do that, you can also just add smut scenes into the parts of the VN that are already completed, and then tie them back into the story in a loop so nothing is missing, making it completely optional.

Game development doesn't have to be linear. You don't need to start at the beginning and hit every base on the way to the end. It is in fact usually not good to do it that way.

 

[Xotanyx]

I do think the devs could use a sit-down, where they go over what information is *actually* necessary for the plot.

Also, if telling the protagonist about something might bring about the end of the VN, they should realize that they can, in fact, do that. Nobody said they can't finish the story in the next few updates. In fact, it doesn't even have to be the end of development.

You see, VNs have this mystical technique, forbidden by the ancient masters of indie development, called "routes" or "branching", where once one version of the story is completed, you can go back and give the player an alternative option for how the story ends. And if you don't want to do that, you can also just add smut scenes into the parts of the VN that are already completed, and then tie them back into the story in a loop so nothing is missing, making it completely optional.

Game development doesn't have to be linear. You don't need to start at the beginning and hit every base on the way to the end. It is in fact usually not good to do it that way.

To add on to this, editing is seriously so important. I've been writing a good bit, and even at 70~ wpm it still takes a long time to write down 100k words, as you might imagine. However, even if I'm getting 12k~ words a week, that doesn't mean I wrote 12k good words. It's not done until I've read through the script at least three times fully. In doing so, I scrap whole pages, ideas, scenarios, even entire character arcs get rearranged or changed. That's normal, and you see that in basically every aspect of art ever.

Now, I don't have a patreon or supporters to keep happy. All my deadlines are self-imposed. But I really think spending the time to ask what you want your project to do and how you want to get there is the most important part of the creative process. If you don't have a target, how are you going to be able to aim at it? Or more importantly, hit the goal?

Don't post something just because it has 9280 words and that looks better to midwits when they check the patch logs. If the script looks better with 4300, do that instead. Imagine if LoTR was 3K pages, but 2k of those pages were detailing how the Fellowship setup each individual camp and seasoned and ate all their meals, 70% of which were just copypasted from earlier scenes?

There's more I could say but I feel the point is made. Take care when crafting your art, and you'll be able to take pride when it's finished; knowing you did all you could to make it the best it could be with the skills and tools available to you when you made it.

 

[Karnewarrior]

To be fair, one of the most frequent criticisms of Tolkien is that he gave a backstory to every tree branch...

 

[TigerWolfe]

To be fair, one of the most frequent criticisms of Tolkien is that he gave a backstory to every tree branch...

And some of us love him for it.

 

[Xotanyx]

To be fair, one of the most frequent criticisms of Tolkien is that he gave a backstory to every tree branch...

Theres backstory, and then theres mundane nothing.

"How are you?"
"Not good. Me house blew up."
"Truly? Thats awful!"
"Yeah."
"Bye!"
"Goodbye."

Except blow my Oblivion-esque meme into full conversations with each of the rather large cast. Again, it feels like we're trying to hit a wordcount threshold instead of tell a story.

 

[nzn]

I do think the devs could use a sit-down, where they go over what information is *actually* necessary for the plot.

Also, if telling the protagonist about something might bring about the end of the VN, they should realize that they can, in fact, do that. Nobody said they can't finish the story in the next few updates. In fact, it doesn't even have to be the end of development.

You see, VNs have this mystical technique, forbidden by the ancient masters of indie development, called "routes" or "branching", where once one version of the story is completed, you can go back and give the player an alternative option for how the story ends. And if you don't want to do that, you can also just add smut scenes into the parts of the VN that are already completed, and then tie them back into the story in a loop so nothing is missing, making it completely optional.

Game development doesn't have to be linear. You don't need to start at the beginning and hit every base on the way to the end. It is in fact usually not good to do it that way.

and yet if writing one good path is a struggle why would you expect em to write several alternatives? sometimes branching is grandiouse, sometimes is problematic and sometimes it is downright game breaking.

 

[Ehmgeeaye]

To be fair, one of the most frequent criticisms of Tolkien is that he gave a backstory to every tree branch...

I fear your point falls flat in that you are comparing Tolkein to a porn VN

 

[Xotanyx]

I fear your point falls flat in that you are comparing Tolkein to a porn VN

It's only your perception of what tiers and strata there are in art that you erroneously seperate the two.

Tolkien only became what he was because of the immense effort and focus he had when writing out the stories he did. I've seen plenty of high budget Hollywood movies by famous directors that dont take proper care and you get slop. Just because the barrier to entry is low doesnt mean the achievable heights are similarly abyssal.

Look, I'm not saying this is going to be LoTR, or even that its attempting to be. But there's a version of this story that is easily an 8/10. Rather than the slow, dragging, plodding 5/10 we've been getting. A few more hours spent tuning the script would put this up several letter grades.

 

[QwertySmurfy]

Wait what? My comment was based on a genuine issue I had trying to continue from my previous save. I had to restart in order to catch up again to latest version. My comment wasn't meant to be rude or anything, it was just a suggestion, for people who may get a similar problem in the future. I don't know why the dev took this as something negative and called me entitled. This is a genuine issue that players are plagued by, in the AVN scene. It's not unreasonable to suggest the option to continue from the latest version, when games give the option to choose the choices you made.

Am I missing something or was my comment rude?

 

[Khayon]

Wait what? My comment was based on a genuine issue I had trying to continue from my previous save. I had to restart in order to catch up again to latest version. My comment wasn't meant to be rude or anything, it was just a suggestion, for people who may get a similar problem in the future. I don't know why the dev took this as something negative and called me entitled. This is a genuine issue that players are plagued by, in the AVN scene. It's not unreasonable to suggest the option to continue from the latest version, when games give the option to choose the choices you made.

Am I missing something or was my comment rude?

View attachment 5605945

No, you did nothing wrong in my opinion, it's just how this dev is, he's very easily offended by the smallest things, especially if you are "entitled" by playing this game for free. The option that you suggested is actually pretty nice to have, just a button which allows you to make choices from the previous updates and continue from the new update, kinda like in the Witcher.

 

[QwertySmurfy]

No, you did nothing wrong in my opinion, it's just how this dev is, he's very easily offended by the smallest things, especially if you are "entitled" by playing this game for free. The option that you suggested is actually pretty nice to have, just a button which allows you to make choices from the previous updates and continue from the new update, kinda like in the Witcher.

Then he went to say I didn't ask for it verbatim, and that I complained or demanded it. It was just suggestion. Nothing derogatory to his efforts. It could possibly improve other players' experience.

This is coming from a guy who has been slowing down progress / milking the series for as long as he can with updates of nothing happening. Which is a whole other can of worms I could've commented about. But I know better than not to actually disrespect a Dev's efforts.

 

[Ehmgeeaye]

Wait what? My comment was based on a genuine issue I had trying to continue from my previous save. I had to restart in order to catch up again to latest version. My comment wasn't meant to be rude or anything, it was just a suggestion, for people who may get a similar problem in the future. I don't know why the dev took this as something negative and called me entitled. This is a genuine issue that players are plagued by, in the AVN scene. It's not unreasonable to suggest the option to continue from the latest version, when games give the option to choose the choices you made.

Am I missing something or was my comment rude?

View attachment 5605945

that would be a lot of work for an issue seemingly only you have, though.

 

[SK1LAR]

 

[ElukiaTV]

UUUH.. 15% ? wasnt he almost done with the second part of the "BIGGEST" update?

 

[Khayon]

UUUH.. 15% ? wasnt he almost done with the second part of the "BIGGEST" update?

You still believe this dev? Wow.