Ren'Py Abandoned CyberSin: Red Ice [v0.08b] [FunkPunkGames]

[FunkPunkGames]

Some feedback after playing your game (alll meant in the most constructive manner possible):

The good:

1. The story background is interesting and seem suitable for the story you want to tell. I don't think human slavery is going to be economically viable in a world of such capable androids, except for sex, but that's just a word here and there.

2. Overall, your renders are pretty good, barring a few facial expressions that are too minor to worry about at this point.

The bad:

1. The mutant tits on the main character look bad. Worse, they force you to use some sort of antigravity or superglue to hold her clothing to the bottom of her breasts (because if you didn't she'd be wearing a tent). That all just screams "phony." Your game seems good enough that you don't need to use mutant tits to get supporters. Give the MC human-sized boobs (even if well-endowed) and you'll see that she'll look a lot more realistic and thus better.

2. The prologue is way, way overdone. Too many characters, too much meaningless dialogue, too many unnecessary scenes. Combine that with lack of meaningful choices (other than to modify some stats the game doesn't use yet) and you are turning off your potential customer base right from the start. And, you promise, we have to wade through an equal amount of new tedious backstory in the next update!

Recommendation: decide that absolute minimum that you need to have in the backstory for the main story to make sense, tell it, and then start telling the main story. No one is thrilled by thirty minutes (let alone sixty!) of mindless clicking, even if there are some occasionally-interesting moments. You can use flashbacks, if you have to to come back to the pre-crisis story, but you shouldn't let the story background drown out the story. Start on the main story ASAP, and you'll get people excited.

Thank you for taking the time to play the game and for your feedback.

I'll try to answer to some of your concerns.

1 - Slavery is not economically viable. Of course, it's not. Poor people are just used as a reminiscence of a past long gone, but with a spark of hope. It would cost the corporations more resources and money to stop possible revolutions of the common people. Instead, it's just a way to have a form of passive control over the masses while they live their luxurious life in the megacities, without being disturbed. Many similar concepts of this structure have been seen in other cyberpunk stories, such as in Alita Battle Angel, where anyone had the chance to earn their place with the Elite by being a Champion of Motorball.

2 - I should have been more clear from the start that this is not an Adult game with a story...but more a Story driven game, with adult themes in it as well. I'm sorry that you don't like it but it is the way it was created from the very first concept. So yes, there will be tons of dialogs (that you can always skip if you don't like to click your way through). I thought about using flashbacks and such, but I'm using the prologue as a narrative tool not only to set a more deep background for the real story to unfold, but also as a way to define the MC through her initial choices.

3 - I hope, anyway, that you will play the next releases as well and that the main story will start to interest you.

 

[FunkPunkGames]

It may be good game if it keeps develop.
The music addition is also nice - not many games have.

Thank you I also made that, it's all original music.

 

[ustar]

Thank you I also made that, it's all original music.

About the music - you could adjust the volume, so it would be more same through the game, because right now some scenes are loud compared to other - normalize it. Anyway I'm impressed about original music

 

[xort]

EDIT: Because some people may not remember to check the post dates, this post was made the day of the first public release. The game at the point was just a massive exposition dump of world building. Over the next 2 years to the date I made this edit, the game has added, much to my joy, a hub based game play system with a growing number of player controlled actions. Even if the goal of the play is to do every action, which raises a different question on the natural of choice but that's beside the point. My harsh first reaction I still think is valid and in the context correct. If the first release was the game as it is today I wouldn't have written what I did below. END OF EDIT

I think a lot of people have stories they want to tell. But most of the stories are not engaging enough to rise to a point that people take notice. When you make a story that implicitly includes sex as an element you get to hijack our evolutionary drive to be interested in sex (at least manly and mostly in men). So that's a free hook for you to use. However, we aren't interested in the story at the start. We are interested in what sex the story can support. The road that many creators seem to want to be on is a story with sex.

However, while It's rude to say most people are not competent enough to write a story people will find engaging. So what to do? Make use of your medium not as a means to tell your story but as a way to do things you can't do in another other medium.

Games are interactive above all else. If you don't get to do things in a game then you move from playing a game to experiencing a story being told with a game UI. Control is what is engaging and maybe even more so that sex. We want to drive events and outcomes to the highest degree that the creator allows. That's the most powerful aspect of sex games, rather than simple sex fiction.

So how do you add option to your story and your game without having it turn into a mess of potential story threads that would expand one story into thousands? The quick and easy option is to structure the game and it's narration into a way that lets players op to take actions that can be started or ignored when they want. Basically give your players a hub they can play from to either advance the plot, or to go and dick around with side quests.

It's not a perfect solution but it's fucking effective at making people happy.

 

[FunkPunkGames]

About the music - you could adjust the volume, so it would be more same through the game, because right now some scenes are loud compared to other - normalize it. Anyway I'm impressed about original music

I will surely address the problem of the volume. I think it's something that I put in the code to automatically adjust the volume to 60% at the start of the game. But the main theme in the game menu is an exception and could cause the problem that you mentioned.

 

[FunkPunkGames]

I think a lot of people have stories they want to tell. But most of the stories are not engaging enough to rise to a point that people take notice. When you make a story that implicitly includes sex as an element you get to hijack our evolutionary drive to be interested in sex (at least manly and mostly in men). So that's a free hook for you to use. However, we aren't interested in the story at the start. We are interested in what sex the story can support. The road that many creators seem to want to be on is a story with sex.

However, while It's rude to say most people are not competent enough to write a story people will find engaging. So what to do? Make use of your medium not as a means to tell your story but as a way to do things you can't do in another other medium.

Games are interactive above all else. If you don't get to do things in a game then you move from playing a game to experiencing a story being told with a game UI. Control is what is engaging and maybe even more so that sex. We want to drive events and outcomes to the highest degree that the creator allows. That's the most powerful aspect of sex games, rather than simple sex fiction.

So how do you add option to your story and your game without having it turn into a mess of potential story threads that would expand one story into thousands? The quick and easy option is to structure the game and it's narration into a way that lets players op to take actions that can be started or ignored when they want. Basically give your players a hub they can play from to either advance the plot, or to go and dick around with side quests.

It's not a perfect solution but it's fucking effective at making people happy.

I agree on most of your post. I'd say that extreme solutions are not effective. In the end every game will have its audience but not everyone will like it.

I'll try to have a balanced approach on the topic, mixing a possible good story with sexual encounters. But of course, that needs time to be developed and I couldn't put everything in just the first release

 

[Nerra]

A very busty brunette protagonist set in a world inspired by the Shadowrun RPG, Neuromancer, and other cyberpunk sources.
I'm in.

 

[turkler]

the only sin here is the render quality

shit looks like final fantasy 7 on the original ps1

 

[e-disfunction]

A minor graphic change suggestion:

You might want to change "CyberSin: RedIce" to "CyberSin: Red Ice" because in most sans serif fonts RedIce will be accidently read as "Red Lice", and because "Red Ice" in heavy lettering fits better under "CyberSin:" if you want to try a vertical title some time in the future.

And YMMV because I am not a graphics professional of any kind.

e-d

 

[AceOfNiagara]

A very promising start. Renders looked to be fairly decent.
Hopefully as you progress you'll figure out how to do animations. The sex scene between Elsa and Wilfrid just seemed off with her butt being blurred

You also might want to consider adding a gallery replay that unlocks as one progresses through the story (or fully unlocks with a code).

Going to add this to my watch list.

 

[FunkPunkGames]

A minor graphic change suggestion:

You might want to change "CyberSin: RedIce" to "CyberSin: Red Ice" because in most sans serif fonts RedIce will be accidently read as "Red Lice", and because "Red Ice" in heavy lettering fits better under "CyberSin:" if you want to try a vertical title some time in the future.

And YMMV because I am not a graphics professional of any kind.

e-d

Thank you for the suggestion

 

[FunkPunkGames]

A very busty brunette protagonist set in a world inspired by the Shadowrun RPG, Neuromancer, and other cyberpunk sources.
I'm in.

Enjoy the ride hehe

 

[FunkPunkGames]

the only sin here is the render quality

shit looks like final fantasy 7 on the original ps1

View attachment 729852

Now that I think about it, you're right. But I loved FF7!

 

[FunkPunkGames]

A very promising start. Renders looked to be fairly decent.
Hopefully as you progress you'll figure out how to do animations. The sex scene between Elsa and Wilfrid just seemed off with her butt being blurred

You also might want to consider adding a gallery replay that unlocks as one progresses through the story (or fully unlocks with a code).

Going to add this to my watch list.

Thank you for playing!
Never been a great fan of animations to be fair, I would probably like more an emphasized textual description instead in the future. The blur was trying just to emulate movement, which apparently I did not make so well. Worry not, I still have to learn

For the gallery, I think I will add it in the next releases, depending on development priorities.

 

[Boobman4424]

female mc, im in

 

[FunkPunkGames]

female mc, im in

Glad to have you on board

 

[Nerra]

2. The prologue is way, way overdone. Too many characters, too much meaningless dialogue, too many unnecessary scenes. Combine that with lack of meaningful choices (other than to modify some stats the game doesn't use yet) and you are turning off your potential customer base right from the start. And, you promise, we have to wade through an equal amount of new tedious backstory in the next update!

I disagree. I don't think the prologue is overdone at all, and it introduces the NPC's in Elsa's life nicely. The game is a whodoneit, and one of the main plot points of a whodoneit is introducing the main suspects of the crime at the beginning of the story.

 

[Azuregoat21]

Keeping an eye on this. Looks very promising.

What kind of fetishes do you think this game will eventually have, or is it going to be more vanilla?

 

[FunkPunkGames]

I disagree. I don't think the prologue is overdone at all, and it introduces the NPC's in Elsa's life nicely. The game is a whodoneit, and one of the main plot points of a whodoneit is introducing the main suspects of the crime at the beginning of the story.

Glad that you liked it and basically yes, it was a way to explain the normality of her life before things take a different path than expected

 

[FunkPunkGames]

Keeping an eye on this. Looks very promising.

What kind of fetishes do you think this game will eventually have, or is it going to be more vanilla?

Thank you very much and great questions.

So basically it will not be just vanilla, it will have various fetishes but I don't want to spoil anything yet. You can, anyway, definitely expect some more rough stuff in the future.
I am also opened to suggestions from my Patreons of course, so we'll see.