VN Ren'Py Cultural Replay: An Unofficial Culture Shock Fanwork [v0.36] [Palos69]

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Shirafune

Well-Known Member
Jun 6, 2017
1,933
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Does Marcus finally bangs Tracy in this fan version and if not will we see it in the next update.

BTW I like this fan version more then the OG game so hoping that the marcus content wont take long to be implemented.
He won't for a long while
 

Palos69

Member
Game Developer
Feb 8, 2021
132
582
Does Marcus finally bangs Tracy in this fan version and if not will we see it in the next update.

BTW I like this fan version more then the OG game so hoping that the marcus content wont take long to be implemented.
He will eventually.

It's definitely not happening next update (Day 9 -10) but it's looking like the content might start on the one after.

Hm i thought since this is a "remake" its up to the point of the original but it was rather short so far.

Besides this, it feels like this game is intended for a ntr audience but i dont know the original though...
Yeah, shorter updates are best because it allows me to pivot. Getting too ambitious with a release is a good way to kill a game from what I've observed.

I don't really expect people to download every update like a major release. I figure they'll just pop in once in a while to see where it's at.

I would give the original a try if you liked it. It's a massive AVN that's been around for a long time, with admittedly inconsistent quality. You're right that both it and this remake are more geared towards an NTR audience, though. There is an Alpha path, but many players have stated it was disappointing. One of the goals of this project is to make the non-NTR routes more satisfying (or at least more interesting), with the caveat that it's constrained by the original renders.

is amazing op dedication to the game, if you do this for more games let us know
I have a rewrite of Angelica's Temptation that is about 15% done, but I ran out of steam on that one. There just wasn't enough room for me to be creative, and I lost interest. Structurally, the game is fine, so it was mainly just fixing grammar and bugs. I'll probably revisit it after this project is complete. I might even try partnering with someone to finish it if I can get the original developer's blessing.
 
Last edited:
Apr 19, 2020
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He will eventually.

It's definitely not happening next update (Day 9 -11), but it's looking like the content might start on the one after.


Yeah, shorter updates are best because it allows me to pivot. Getting too ambitious with a release is a good way to kill a game from what I've observed.

I don't really expect people to download every update like a major release. I figure they'll just pop in once in a while to see where it's at.

I would give the original a try if you liked it. It's a massive AVN that's been around for a long time, with admittedly inconsistent quality. You're right that both it and this remake are more geared towards an NTR audience, though. There is an Alpha path, but many players have stated it was disappointing. One of the goals of this project is to make the non-NTR routes more satisfying (or at least more interesting), with the caveat that it's constrained by the original renders.


I have a rewrite of Angelica's Temptation that is about 15% done, but I ran out of steam on that one. There just wasn't enough room for me to be creative, and I lost interest. Structurally, the game is fine, so it was mainly just fixing grammar and bugs. I'll probably revisit it after this project is complete. I might even try partnering with someone to finish it if I can get the original developer's blessing.
A crazy suggestion, can you pick up the game “Demon Boy” by Eromersive.
It has been abandoned a long time ago and i think you will make a good work out of it if you try. Also you wont need to advertise it as people are dying to see someone pick it up were it was left. You will gain instant traffic on that one
 
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exsomon

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May 11, 2020
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A crazy suggestion, can you pick up the game “Demon Boy” by Eromersive.
It has been abandoned a long time ago and i think you will make a good work out of it if you try. Also you wont need to advertise it as people are dying to see someone pick it up were it was left. You will gain instant traffic on that one
there are some abandoned games around, for example "the innocent Mother" but unfortunately writing is only one part of the coin. Rendering is difficult, this game has good renders and an active fan page which eases stuff as Palo69 does not need to make new renders just rearrange them but other abandoned games may not have that luxury
 
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Palos69

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Feb 8, 2021
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A crazy suggestion, can you pick up the game “Demon Boy” by Eromersive.
It has been abandoned a long time ago and i think you will make a good work out of it if you try. Also you wont need to advertise it as people are dying to see someone pick it up were it was left. You will gain instant traffic on that one
I looked at the game and it looks interesting. Very high quality renders and it sucks that it was abandoned.

But I have to echo what exsomon said and add that the render quality is almost a detriment to any project like this getting off the ground for it. If someone wanted to put in the time to make the renders, I would be willing to give it a shot. But at that point, the person might as well do the project solo.

Culture Shock uses a lot of a composition shortcuts that you would never see in a more detail-oriented AVN like Being A Dik. It has a lot of “neutral” frames for me to work with to use as transitions or as connectors to unaffiliated renders.

I haven’t decompiled Demon Boy to look at it closely, but generally the higher quality the renders are, the more precise and less waste there is in frame composition because of how long it takes to make them. And that waste is critical to making an AVN mod at this scale.

———

New update is probably going to take longer than the last. The pace in the OG really speeds up for a lot of different girls after Day 10. Constantly pushing things back that didn’t flow was giving me sections that were noticeably light on content, and I have to bring more future content earlier.

I started a Google doc to organize bullet points for what happens in each day to help keep me organized. But it’s a pain to do, because of how long the game is. If anyone wanted to help with that portion, that would be cool, but no pressure. The game is a block of marble and I’ll keep chipping away at it.
 
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Jgriz04

Newbie
Jun 1, 2021
20
14
Are the women reluctant to participate in the NTR or is this a case where the women are willing since the MC plays beta and never makes a move. Are the other men creeps or just normal guys?
 

exsomon

Active Member
May 11, 2020
614
795
Are the women reluctant to participate in the NTR or is this a case where the women are willing since the MC plays beta and never makes a move. Are the other men creeps or just normal guys?
in the original game girls are willing but how will this issue resolved in this fan make is unknown
some drugs or blackmail may be involved
 

Palos69

Member
Game Developer
Feb 8, 2021
132
582
Update 0.30 is very close to being finished. I’m doing more rewrites into some earlier days.

Are the women reluctant to participate in the NTR or is this a case where the women are willing since the MC plays beta and never makes a move. Are the other men creeps or just normal guys?
As of right now, I plan on making them reluctant in some cases, willing in others. It’s also character dependent.

And I would say just normal guys in this version. They were more creepy in the OG game, but I’m not sure if that was an intentional choice.

Is harem possible in this game.?
It’s not implemented yet, but I do have some harem-esque elements outlined. I would check back in a couple more updates.
 

Chemish

Active Member
Sep 12, 2018
530
1,275
Update 0.30 is very close to being finished. I’m doing more rewrites into some earlier days.


As of right now, I plan on making them reluctant in some cases, willing in others. It’s also character dependent.

And I would say just normal guys in this version. They were more creepy in the OG game, but I’m not sure if that was an intentional choice.


It’s not implemented yet, but I do have some harem-esque elements outlined. I would check back in a couple more updates.
Good to hear. Looking forward to it.
 
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Palos69

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Feb 8, 2021
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Also playing around with upscaling images, fixing lighting/color balance, etc. But that probably won’t happen for a while. The best software I’ve found (Topaz Photo AI) is $200 and I’m still unemployed. I would use it to blow up renders if I’m extending scenes, removing objects or texts for continuity reasons.

But mainly, fix the color balancing. It looks like a lot of the renders are completely off, even just fixing that would be worth it imo. There’s an example below.

I might try to increase the quality of the animations, too. The same company has software for $300. I would be using it to convert any animations that were below 60fps back up to that standard.

I’ve also experimented with converting the renders to photorealistic images, but I don’t think the tech is quite there yet. It’s hard for it to distinguish between two people and you get sex scenes that look like they came from the movie, “The Thing”. I attached an example of a good result, but I don’t know. There’s something uncanny about them.

If anyone has any examples of cheaper apps that are just as good or better, I’d be down to try them out.
 
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Chemish

Active Member
Sep 12, 2018
530
1,275
Also playing around with upscaling images, fixing lighting/color balance, etc. But that probably won’t happen for a while. The best software is like $200 and I’m still unemployed. The one I would need for the animations is $300. Attached is an example of the former.

I’ve also experimented with converting the renders to photorealistic images, but I don’t think the tech is quite there yet. It’s hard for to distinguish between two people and you get sex scenes that look like they came from the movie, “The Thing”.


You got PayPal or Venmo or something?
 
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pavan23559

Newbie
Sep 16, 2021
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Also playing around with upscaling images, fixing lighting/color balance, etc. But that probably won’t happen for a while. The best software I’ve found (Topaz Photo AI) is $200 and I’m still unemployed. I would use it to blow up renders if I’m extending scenes, removing objects or texts for continuity reasons.

But mainly, fix the color balancing. It looks like a lot of the renders are completely off, even just fixing that would be worth it imo. There’s an example below.

I might try to increase the quality of the animations, too. The same company has software for $300. I would be using it to convert any animations that were below 60fps back up to that standard.

I’ve also experimented with converting the renders to photorealistic images, but I don’t think the tech is quite there yet. It’s hard for to distinguish between two people and you get sex scenes that look like they came from the movie, “The Thing”. I attached an example of a good result, but I don’t know. There’s something uncanny about them.

If anyone has any examples of cheaper apps that are just as good or better, I’d be down to try them out.

Great work... NGL... !!!!!
 
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pavan23559

Newbie
Sep 16, 2021
39
44
He will eventually.

It's definitely not happening next update (Day 9 -10) but it's looking like the content might start on the one after.


Yeah, shorter updates are best because it allows me to pivot. Getting too ambitious with a release is a good way to kill a game from what I've observed.

I don't really expect people to download every update like a major release. I figure they'll just pop in once in a while to see where it's at.

I would give the original a try if you liked it. It's a massive AVN that's been around for a long time, with admittedly inconsistent quality. You're right that both it and this remake are more geared towards an NTR audience, though. There is an Alpha path, but many players have stated it was disappointing. One of the goals of this project is to make the non-NTR routes more satisfying (or at least more interesting), with the caveat that it's constrained by the original renders.


I have a rewrite of Angelica's Temptation that is about 15% done, but I ran out of steam on that one. There just wasn't enough room for me to be creative, and I lost interest. Structurally, the game is fine, so it was mainly just fixing grammar and bugs. I'll probably revisit it after this project is complete. I might even try partnering with someone to finish it if I can get the original developer's blessing.
Maybe you can make mc hit the gym or something.
Romance in cuture shock is slow.. But I believe the payoff would be even more bigger as updates go on... Ntr is cool no hate on it. (bjt people only play it for dopamine rushes, etc mostly.)
To make alpha path interesting.. waiting for intimacy,romance and sex.. and the pay off should on par with ntr.. i think.. (Played game of hearts game.? I think they do that well).
 
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kurosx

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Oct 1, 2017
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Palos69
Just for upscaling, you could try Upscayl, an AI upscaler:


I had tried different images and had upscaled some batches of images from different games, with partially outstanding results.
 

Palos69

Member
Game Developer
Feb 8, 2021
132
582
This one was a slog. The scope of the update just kept getting bigger. I’ll reserve a few days to respond to comments, record feedback, and release a patch (if necessary), but then I’m going to take some time off so I can enjoy the weather and focus more on my job hunt.

Because I’m rearranging entire days and composing custom scenes now, it was hard to keep the change log organized on what scene was from what day, etc. For the most part, if an OG scene was touched, I tried to make note of it.

As always, the saves are probably incompatible.

Major Features:
- Day 9 and 10 added.
- First major NTR sequence added. This is the entry point for "a" NTR route, not "the" route. There will be other variations of NTR in future releases.
- Gallery feature was re-added, but it doesn’t have all the scenes and there are some bugs. See below in the dev notes for why this is. I’ll be doing some refactoring in the next update that should allow me to add more of them in the future.
- The route for the mother romance now has clear entry points. This prevents the romance from bleeding into non-mother playthroughs.
- Karla romance opened to beta players.
- The sex scene on Day 8 has been opened to non-NTR alpha players. High love versions of that route have been removed to be reintegrated further along their routes.
- Maude romance scene reintegrated and moved to Day 7.
- Major rewrites in almost all days.

The Change Log for 0.30, Developer Notes.

Feature Roadmap for 0.35 has been added to the first post in the thread.


---

Change Log Version 0.30 (Day 9 and 10):
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---

Developer Notes:
I have a lot more respect for the larger visual novels out there. It’s easy to see how many games develop story issues if you don't have it completely planned out. I spent 10+ hours on the Marcus/Sister scene alone. I can also see why a lot of games die before completion or use really simplified choice structures with copy/paste walls of text.

Luckily, the detail-oriented script complexity is the part I like the most, so I won’t be doing the latter.

On the Rewrites:
I used to work as a copy editor at a university, so I was taught to edit without replacing the original voice. But it does seem to me that the rumored multiple writers for the game might be accurate. There are definitely style changes and strange plot pivots. In my opinion, the Delamar investigation plot line was clearly meant to be BNWO before they made it “Maoi”. All the elements are there. I’m not going to change the story to BNWO, but if there’s interest, I could see myself adding a custom route when I get closer to the end and if the OG game is still in development.

I was initially conservative about some changes in the earlier releases, but now that I have a better feel for the flow and where the story is going, I've started going back and rewriting entire sections. The first of those edits are in this update. And after going through the dialogue in those early days, I can now better understand the initial criticism that nothing had been changed.

On the Gallery:
I added the requested Gallery feature back into the game. Because of the amount of code regression I experienced, I would not be surprised if there were bugs. I tested it, but there is only so much manual testing I can stand and I don't do it every time I change a scene. Let me know if you guys run into anything, and I'll fix issues as they come up. Some sex scenes will have defaulted titles which are non-incest. Toggling this on and off for each name is not possible without a major change.

Also note, not every piece of NSFW content is in the gallery. I’ll probably add them as I get further alone. Some scenes are shorter than they would be in the game, as the scenes were chopped up to account for different variables. Because of how much change happens every release, the new scenes for this update will not be in the gallery and will be added retroactively.

To better my ability to add scenes to the gallery, I am going to start refactoring the relevant sections of the code-base. The first thing will be a family toggle. That should cut down on a lot of the issues and I should be able to add most scenes to the gallery normally.

I’ve also removed the status-based variable function that would pull in flavor text for different types of play. It was incompatible with the gallery. It also created issues with some of the built-in Renpy tools and I suspect it may have had an effect on some 3rd party applications being used by some users.

I know it was one of my selling points early on in the project, but now that I'm more comfortable rewriting scenes and making custom ones, I don't really think they're necessary. The best of that dialogue has been reintegrated as conditional text in the script.

On the Poll:
I’ve been pretty adamant about not making money on this project and that hasn’t changed. However, I would like to get a license for an AI Upscaler and Color Balancer to address some of the issues in the renders. In a previous post (my last post on page 14), I attached examples of what these renders would look like. So if people want this feature and are fine with it, I would like to open up the project for donations temporarily to reduce the cost or until I reach the total cost of the software, which is currently priced at $199 + tax.

I'm only using the poll to get a pulse on what fans of the project think of the proposal on ethical grounds. I'll make a judgement call based on a combination of the poll, the thread, and private messages.

If people aren’t comfortable with it, I won’t do it. And I’ll buy the license myself in the future. But I’m just not sure when that would be. The job market is pretty rough right now for my field.

Do note that when I compress the images, the results of any upscaling will diminish, though I think they still might come out better than the originals.

The main issue it will be fixing is the color balance. For some reason, a lot of the OG renders are aggressively warm color-wise and I’m wondering if it was caused by an error in the compression process. See the attached images in my previous post on page 14 for examples. For some reason, Elena and the mother look like lobsters.

I’ll also be able to remove elements from a render (like the misspelled text messages in the phone renders), change the lighting, and will keep higher resolution images of certain renders so I can change the “view” in scenes with limited images to extend it.

I had the idea, of which I’m not sure about the feasibility, to distribute packs of higher resolution images that you can manually insert into your desktop image folder once the images.rpa is extracted. Just playing around with the demo of the software made me realize how much is being lost by the compression.

The product in question:
Removed link
 
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SonsOfLiberty

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Cultural Replay: A Culture Shock Fanwork [v0.30] [Palos69]

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4.00 star(s) 2 Votes