VN Ren'Py Abandoned Damaged Goods [Day 2 Part 2] [Yihman1 -Sinappeal]

[Elkfood]

I tried. Ended up hitting the space bar until my fingers went numb. Not for me, but I wish you good luck.

 

[Trasher2018]

That an interesting analysis of the scene, I shall offer some explanations for you.

1) She is a delivery girl. She does not have time to eat with a customer.

Fair enough, but she is also a student. She does not have the willpower to resist Rose who is the dean of her academy. Rose is a person that holds a position of great power over her.

2) They spit on her at the mall and she is working without showering before that?

The girl spitting on her is an explanation as to how she has caught the virus. Of coarse she washed herself off already as you can
not see any spit visible on her body. However sometimes when a person has been violated they can feel dirty even after they wash them self. For instance if you ask a rape victim who has taken a shower after they raped "Do you feel clean yet?" Many would respond along the lines of... No... I do not feel clean. Being spit on =/= being raped not trying to diminish women who have been raped or their experience, but using it as an example of how people can physically look and be one way, but feel another because of a trauma.

3) The highly intelligent and nice Rose let her shower during her worktime? - she wants her to get fired right?

Rose values the girls mental health over her employment status. Besides it's getting late and she was the last customer of the night.

4) Then the whole "oh she has no towels"-trope. I dont know where you guys haver your towels, mine are always in the bath or the washing kitchen (dunno if thats the correct english term ^^ - the room with the mashines you know ) - And there are ALWAYS towels in the bathroom. At least 3-4 ...

Perhaps it is a trope, but look at it from a writers perspective. Girl is in shower. Want a character to go into the shower area with her. Give a reason to do so. "Here is a towel" comes to the top of that list. Other option could be "Here are some clothes" or "The building is burning down we have to escape!"... Well, I wanted her back in her uniform after because she is still working, and didn't want to have to burn Rose's house down to see them titties... So went with the towel option

5) You know you can just open a door a bit and hide everything but your head right? - Maybe Alice is stupid, but I guess she understands how doors work.

This is very true, but players get to see less titties then... So we toss them a bone eh? Maybe she thought it would be naughty to give Rose a little eyeful an tease her?

6) The highly intelligent and nice Rose understands the Pandemic and she KNOWS that her student is not vaccinated (as said earlier, she knows all the health stats of her students). So when she sees her in the bath it is OBVIOUS that she will freak out and put her down - yeah ... no. - Now she even puts her into a slave relationship. I dont care what Mind controlling plot there will be - this is so out of character.
And instead of a that you could have made a fitting "sex" scene where she comforts her, and tries to "help" her in that situation with her exposure... something "reasonable" like that. Could have been a nice scene "Oh Alice - I ... had no idea... " ... you know it ... a bit awkward, a bit sexy ... something in line with the character.

Under normal circumstances assuming this event happened a few days earlier prior to "The dream" Rose would have behaved very differently, and had an entirely different reaction to the circumstances. Yes, this is "out of character for Rose" you have a keen eye that many people have noticed this. It's not just Rose in Rose's body anymore. Rose has let a lust demon enter her soul. Had you chose not to go check on the girl you would not have provoked the demon inside of Rose to come out and play. Yet Rose still has an extremely high level of willpower in spite of this demon that hides inside of her. It took all of Rose's super willpower to even give the girl an out with "come back tomorrow and you are off the hook".

Why did you stop numbering!? ugg... I continue numbers for you

7) This is probably what my problem is. There are (currently) no real characters in this game. Currently they are all just stereotypes (as far as we know them) - and Rose is meant to be a nice, intelligent, caring and a bit shy (not so sure on that part) person. At least that is what the game tells us (how others talk about her). And then we get this bathroom scene? Maybe this is because I played her so nice up to that point that it does not fit.

The good old "red headed demon possessed smoking vegan psychiatrist dean" stereotype trope character... It's practically as common in big hollywood blockbusters as the "Magical Negro", and "Manic Pixie Dream Girl".

8) And why does it affect the virus what the MC is doing? The virus triggers when we decide to enter the bathroom, but not when we dont do that? - I guess she still masturbates because she stands in front of the toilet? But why dont we see that?

This virus goes back into remission after a person cums. Once it has woken up 2 things will put it to sleep.
a) Knock the person out (or at least beat them up a bit if not knocking them out) b) The person cums
If for instance Rose noticed that the virus was effecting Alice, and then chose to tie her to the bed and deny her from masturbating but didn't beat the crap out of her either... She could just sit there beside the infected person for hours listening to alice talk in latin and look at her purple eyes. The brain must be reset some how.

9) You have to choose what the player will see - do we only see what the MC sees or will we witness other scenes too? Then you have to show them all the time. When you show her masturbating and the MC is outside and cant see anything - and cant hear her, because we know the door is more or less soundproof, because of the towel scene, then you have to show it when she is not going there.

For the most part the player will only see what Rose sees. Mostly... However, sometimes additional information and additional scenes outside of Rose will be given. So sometimes the player may be more aware of the scene than Rose is when making a decision for Rose.

10) And at least I want to have a choice with the sub/dom thing. The choice here feels bad, because it is way to disconnected. I have to pick her as my slave because I cared and check on her? ... sorry ... that does not feel right to me.

There are a great many choices already. The following morning when Alice comes to the office there will once again be a choice. Why do you care if she is just the steroetype as you said before? Hmmm maybe she is not just a sterotype afterall... Someone told a fib.

11) I guess for a lot of ppl this will be a fine game, because the renders are quite good. But I get annoyed by thing like I mentioned above.

People like different things, and take different perceptions of situations.

12) I need characters and development that makes sense. A good example for that is GGGB. Even when it can escalate big time, it felt reasonable. You choices mattered and you understood them. When you choose to take drugs that has consequences - Even some exotic combination pf path work quite good. Not all of them and there can be problems with extremes - but in general the game had a good progression of the MC. Yeah the story is generic, but how the choices affect the playthrus, is unmatched (as far as I know).

I love GGGB. That is one of my favorite games. I couldn't praise Eva Kiss any higher for the work that was put into that game. In spite of how inspirational that game is Damaged Goods is not Good Girl Gone Bad. We are something different. We are telling a different story here. I get the comparison because because in both cases there is a pretty red head female protagonist with a lot of choices, and a lot of routes but I assure you we are different game than GGGB. You even dis eva by calling that game "generic" shame on you! Get out of my thread go over to hers and apologize with an "I'm not worthy" for even thinking her game is generic don't come back here until after that is done. Eva fuckin rocks and don't you forget it!

13) I will keep an eye on the game, bc I do think there is a fun game in it. When I just dont care about a game, I dont write that much ^^.

I didn't expect otherwise from someone who wrote a book for me

14) So good luck for the next updates - and maybe review your arcs, choices and character development - and/or try to see what a player sees without the knowledge you guys have about what is happening and will happen in the future.

A lot of thought has been put in. a lot more thought will be put in. Thanks for the good luck, what are you still doing here you owe eva an apology. Peace

Damn - I try not to extend the wall of text we are juggling that much ^^

Ok - that is what I meant. The whole lust demon stuff is unknown to the player. "We" just see a weird dream and a character that acts strange. And my first thought is not "she might be posessed by a lust demon".
YOU know that, but when I havent missed a huge hint, I (aka the player) doesnt know that.

And by steroetype I mean what I said - we have the slutty "friend", the bratty friend, the nice friend, the sleezy coworker, the milf ... and the quite naive but intelligent MC. And I dont want to say they wont get more character, but thats what we know of the characters at this point. "red headed demon possessed smoking vegan psychiatrist dean" is not her character. The look is not really a difining part of that - the rest are her jobs. Your character is more than your job, your haircolor or your diet. But that is what I mean - when you describe a persons chracter that way, she is bland. "Yeah his new girlfriend, we talked last night. She is a vegan PETA activist - oh an she has blue hair." - Yeah ... sounds like an exiting personality. - and as I said - I had no idea that she is possessed. ^^


Oh and the generic thing of GGGB isnt a criticisms. When you break it down, it is a quite generic story/setting. The game itself is more than that, because of the way all arcs unfold and change the story. I have probably 30+ playthroughs in that game and all without an WT. I just tried different path bc I enjoyed it that much.



Fuck .... again to much text

 

[Mamker]

I tried the android version, and i couldnt come across any sex scenes. After the girl in the shower scene i was just told there is more content coming and was kicked back out to the main menu and lost all progress.. Also there's a lot of dialogue.. you really have to skip a lot. I think some porn needs to be added every now and then.. sadly i couldn't fap to this

 

[yihman1]

Damn - I try not to extend the wall of text we are juggling that much ^^

Ok - that is what I meant. The whole lust demon stuff is unknown to the player. "We" just see a weird dream and a character that acts strange. And my first thought is not "she might be posessed by a lust demon".
YOU know that, but when I havent missed a huge hint, I (aka the player) doesnt know that.

And by steroetype I mean what I said - we have the slutty "friend", the bratty friend, the nice friend, the sleezy coworker, the milf ... and the quite naive but intelligent MC. And I dont want to say they wont get more character, but thats what we know of the characters at this point. "red headed demon possessed smoking vegan psychiatrist dean" is not her character. The look is not really a difining part of that - the rest are her jobs. Your character is more than your job, your haircolor or your diet. But that is what I mean - when you describe a persons chracter that way, she is bland. "Yeah his new girlfriend, we talked last night. She is a vegan PETA activist - oh an she has blue hair." - Yeah ... sounds like an exiting personality. - and as I said - I had no idea that she is possessed. ^^


Oh and the generic thing of GGGB isnt a criticisms. When you break it down, it is a quite generic story/setting. The game itself is more than that, because of the way all arcs unfold and change the story. I have probably 30+ playthroughs in that game and all without an WT. I just tried different path bc I enjoyed it that much.



Fuck .... again to much text

I thought I was making it obvious lol

She is talking about demons and how whores let money into their hearts, then said "I must light that fire of temptation inside your heart" before making her eat money and call herself a whore...

Then I even had her talking about the dream with her friends at the gym later.

You think I put that dream there just to be like. "Oh it's a dream and doesn't mean anything to the plot at all."

I wouldn't have put that dream sequence in if it didn't mean something.

 

[yihman1]

I tried the android version, and i couldnt come across any sex scenes. After the girl in the shower scene i was just told there is more content coming and kicked back out to the main menu and lost all progress.. Also there's a lot of dialogue.. you really have to skip a lot. I think some porn needs to be added every now and then.. sadly i couldn't fap to this

I have not played or tested the android version at all. A 3rd party made the port. (or is it a 4th party because we are a development team of 2?). Anyways there is no vaginal sex scenes in the game. To get a blowjob scene try grabbing marks junk in the morning then kissing him goodbye before you go.

 

[Mamker]

I see, thanks for the info. Awesome quality btw, you guys are very skilled

 

[cakeny]

Love female protag games, just wish so many of them didn't start game with you already in a relationship.

 

[yihman1]

Love female protag games, just wish so many of them didn't start game with you already in a relationship.

Rose is still a virgin. It will be possible to get out of that relationship and move on to a different one, or to cheat or be cheated on in the future. That relationship status will only be a permanent situation if the player chooses for it to be.

 

[Trasher2018]

I thought I was making it obvious lol

She is talking about demons and how whores let money into their hearts, then said "I must light that fire of temptation inside your heart" before making her eat money and call herself a whore...

Then I even had her talking about the dream with her friends at the gym later.

You think I put that dream there just to be like. "Oh it's a dream and doesn't mean anything to the plot at all."

I wouldn't have put that dream sequence in if it didn't mean something.

Do all your dream become reality? ^^

I assumed that it was just some kind of foreshadowing of something that will happen and not the actual event to be honest. At first I see a dream as a dream. Until these posts I had no idea that there are real demons in that world or that you can be possessed by a demon. And that is something you have to keep in mind with your story. How should the player know that demons are a thing? Or that she might be affected by one?

Maybe all that is just a simulation and that is the reason we see the distortions on screen? who knows?

 

[cakeny]

Rose is still a virgin. It will be possible to get out of that relationship and move on to a different one, or to cheat or be cheated on in the future. That relationship status will only be a permanent situation if the player chooses for it to be.

Guess there is silver lining to cloud, just sucks we have to be in the relationship in the first place.

 

[testicalawrrior]

Like Im enjoying the quality but Im not a fan of being railroaded into one sexuality or another, If I want to be a bisexual slut choking down dick, muff and girl dick thats my prerogative

 

[Olivia_V]

You get a 2 part reply.
####Part 1####

[Us compared to AAA games]

It's nice to be compared to the big boys that make AAA games, but we are not exactly Electronic Arts here. EA has like $5 Billion in annual revenues and 9,300 employees. They got pay to win with loot boxes. It's like comparing our lemonade stand to Walmart. We got just 2 guys that haven't made a penny in profits that work for free or at the moment actually at a loss in opportunity loss, assets, electricity ect. (I was up late at night coding on Christmas Eve for like 12 hours into the morning to make sure that we could release on Christmas. Because a Christmas release was our internal target.) In military terms it's like a couple of spartan warriors up against a modern army division that has tanks, drones, helicopters, and can call in airstrikes. If we went to war with EA we are Bambi and they are Godzilla we are under no delusion of it being anything different, but still we fight our battle for our fair share of our piece of the pie our current goal is just to break even.

Our game will always be free to play. We are never going to stick up a pay wall to get access to the game because we care about giving people who can't afford to donate access to the game. I know times are tough out there, but if just 1 in 1,000 people who enjoy our game generously helps us out with just $1 a month we can hit our current goal happily. We are artists first, and business people second. As Miss Thornberg so eloquently put it in our game when she is talking about love and money. We are working on love right now and not a whole lot of money.

I have played "High Life" and I loved that game. It's a shame it became abandoned. That bad boy is #2 on my favorite abandoned games list right after "My Sweet Neighbors". The bronze medal there for me goes to a tie between "Primal Instinct", and "Our Fate". All great games. It sucks these got abandoned.

OK, so the AAA comparison was not meant to ask you to conform to AAA standards, which would be absurd. It was meant to make this very clear: if your padding causes your game to bloat to a file size that compares to, or dwarfs that of, even a 3 or 4 year old AAA title, it would be really absurd. If you're on track for a 30 GB game on 50% completion (like AWAM was at one point, maybe even worse), and you've got amateur-ish DAZ graphics and no gameplay or cinematics to speak of, that would be absolutely ridiculous. Padding does not help you. It does not help your story, it does not help your optics, it does not help your logistics.

The way you describe your process, it seems that your padding is just the by-product chiefly of 1. writing inefficiency and 2. you not fully trusting what is already there. At least, this is fixable. It's harder to talk about this with someone for whom the padding is deliberate. (As an Asian saying goes, the hardest sleeper to wake up is one that is already awake.)

With number 1, stuff like the foreshadowing not adding up should ideally be resolved before you go to rendering. You should not be adding anything else by your step 6. In fact, if you want to make this more efficient for your small team, you should have completed the script, right down to dialogue, and go over it with your visual director before he goes to visualization. Ideally, you approve a storyboard from him (assuming you make the final call) before he does scene-building. As a professional screenwriter, if all I can give a good director is a sequence treatment, he isn't going into principal photography. When the project is an animated feature, the animation director must have a rough storyboard that needs to be approved before letting his team begin. That way, you're not over or under shooting your scenes. Re-writes and re-shoots are often signs of failure within the process, not natural outcomes of it.

Second, you have to trust the visual. The Alice scene I described in your work didn't need internal dialogue, just as it didn't need five images of the same moment. You have to trust your audience enough to see that they don't need three shots of a walk into the shower to understand that your character is going to shower.

 

[Olivia_V]

Sometimes things will be abrupt and a surprise. For instance it was rather abrupt to some that she questioned her sexuality at the gym. Keep in mind she had an opportunity to get sexual with her fiance only a few hours early in the day and passed it up. Why should she pass that up? Maybe she not physically attracted to him? This is what I call "subtext". It's written in a way where it's not spoonfed to the player and they must fill in that gap them self. Some players missed that subtext here. It was subtle, but it was there.

That's not enough subtext to justify the enormity of that scene. If she's spent her entire life a virgin waiting for marriage, she isn't going to immediately jump to the conclusion that she's a lesbian just because she didn't touch her man's dick that morning. Trust me, unless she has a history of not being attracted to her fiance (that you didn't show), "I must be gay" will be a loooong way down the reasoning chain. There's a journey to realization that must occur, and you have to show us this is happening, not tell us and hope your one subtextual moment was enough. JOHN does a comparatively decent job at it. The protagonist, who has a fiance, at one point has already had sexual intimacy with a woman, but her mind is still wrapping around the implications to her sexuality. Is she bi? Does she like women, or just this one woman? But she still loves her man! Etc., etc. All this could be leading up to a potential coming out moment, and we're shown every step of it. And this is already a fairly sexually active character. How much harder for an idealistic virgin with strong beliefs?

 

[Majindevil]

hmm ok game startet strange with the dream but everything after was somehow ok but this virus thing and the whole vegetarian and peta monologes were really strange (btw how do you recognize a vegetarian? He/She tells you...)
the acting out of character in some choices seemed really strange but after reading the comments all is clear sex virus, currupting demons etc.

startet the game and everything looked like a nice slice of life story but after reading about the demon crap it is just another supernatural corruption game.

like i said started nice but now i know what i can expect and dont have to follow its a pity cause like some posters said a style like GGGB in this quality could have been interesting but i think its the typical problem fast sex scenes sell more^^

 

[yihman1]

OK, so the AAA comparison was not meant to ask you to conform to AAA standards, which would be absurd. It was meant to make this very clear: if your padding causes your game to bloat to a file size that compares to, or dwarfs that of, even a 3 or 4 year old AAA title, it would be really absurd. If you're on track for a 30 GB game on 50% completion (like AWAM was at one point, maybe even worse), and you've got amateur-ish DAZ graphics and no gameplay or cinematics to speak of, that would be absolutely ridiculous. Padding does not help you. It does not help your story, it does not help your optics, it does not help your logistics.

The way you describe your process, it seems that your padding is just the by-product chiefly of 1. writing inefficiency and 2. you not fully trusting what is already there. At least, this is fixable. It's harder to talk about this with someone for whom the padding is deliberate. (As an Asian saying goes, the hardest sleeper to wake up is one that is already awake.)

With number 1, stuff like the foreshadowing not adding up should ideally be resolved before you go to rendering. You should not be adding anything else by your step 6. In fact, if you want to make this more efficient for your small team, you should have completed the script, right down to dialogue, and go over it with your visual director before he goes to visualization. Ideally, you approve a storyboard from him (assuming you make the final call) before he does scene-building. As a professional screenwriter, if all I can give a good director is a sequence treatment, he isn't going into principal photography. When the project is an animated feature, the animation director must have a rough storyboard that needs to be approved before letting his team begin. That way, you're not over or under shooting your scenes. Re-writes and re-shoots are often signs of failure within the process, not natural outcomes of it.

Second, you have to trust the visual. The Alice scene I described in your work didn't need internal dialogue, just as it didn't need five images of the same moment. You have to trust your audience enough to see that they don't need three shots of a walk into the shower to understand that your character is going to shower.

Bloated file size? We got over a thousand HD renders in there. It's just over 1 GB uncompressed and like 240 MB compressed. At this point in time a massive file size is not of great concern. If it comes to the point where we are dealing with a truly gargantuan file over ten updates from now we will either go for a strictly compressed version or move on to a Part 2. If making a part 2 as seen with games such as Dating my daughter or Fashion Business. It's a non problem currently and when it becomes a problem we have a solution that others have used that should work for us as well as it has for them.

Writing efficiency? I'm not making a technical manual on how to dissemble a corroborator here. If that were the case it would only be the absolute most pertinent details in a simplified step by step fashion as efficiently as possible. It's about the journey not the destination.

Foreshadowing can come in the form of either visual or verbal/textual. For a visual foreshadow you are absolutely correct that it would be important to come prior to a render, but not so much with a verbal or textual one foreshadow because I can simply say that the character said anything no matter what the renders are assuming it's renders that would look to have talking going on.

You are absolutely correct that 3 shots of someone getting into a shower could be considered to be over kill. However to say that it hurts the player experience at all to have those extra renders it's simply absurd. There is an old saying "It's better to have too much than not enough" It can make it feel like more of a scene with more renders. For instance sometimes we will do a single shot of Rose in the car from A to B. Would we get our point across better if we had her adjust the radio in her car for a moment and keep on driving? Not really but doing something like that would make it feel more real.

When I'm writing a scene I'll sometimes give him a bit of a loose outline of what I want the scene to be. Say I'll describe 20 renders visually very descriptively in writing that I want. Then I'll tell him (actually got this as a standing order) if it looks like we need something as an "in between render" go ahead and put that in too. Then sometimes he will hand me back 30 or 35 renders when all I asked for 20. I'm not one to complain when he does that sort of thing putting in a little extra hard work expanding a scenes visuals.

What one thinks of as "bloat" another thinks of as a "full belly". Different strokes for different folks.

 

[yihman1]

That's not enough subtext to justify the enormity of that scene. If she's spent her entire life a virgin waiting for marriage, she isn't going to immediately jump to the conclusion that she's a lesbian just because she didn't touch her man's dick that morning. Trust me, unless she has a history of not being attracted to her fiance (that you didn't show), "I must be gay" will be a loooong way down the reasoning chain. There's a journey to realization that must occur, and you have to show us this is happening, not tell us and hope your one subtextual moment was enough. JOHN does a comparatively decent job at it. The protagonist, who has a fiance, at one point has already had sexual intimacy with a woman, but her mind is still wrapping around the implications to her sexuality. Is she bi? Does she like women, or just this one woman? But she still loves her man! Etc., etc. All this could be leading up to a potential coming out moment, and we're shown every step of it. And this is already a fairly sexually active character. How much harder for an idealistic virgin with strong beliefs?

Why would she immediately jump to the conclusion of "I am straight" if she never handled a cock before? Thornberg mentioned the empty folder in the dream as in trying to make Rose as much of a blank slate as possible for the player to mold to their preferences. When a gay / lesbian person comes out it's often times a different experience for different people. Just because someone comes out it does not mean they are going to immediately jump into bed with the next person they see.

I have played a lot of adult games, and I have read and interacted in the forums a bit as well. A common theme I have seen in some female protagonist games is the good fashioned "Is there a lesbian only path?" To avoid getting that comment 3 times a week for the next 6 months I just put it out there early letting players who will want to play in such a way such a path will be possible.

Also JOHN is a great game, I love that game.

 

[yihman1]

hmm ok game startet strange with the dream but everything after was somehow ok but this virus thing and the whole vegetarian and peta monologes were really strange (btw how do you recognize a vegetarian? He/She tells you...)
the acting out of character in some choices seemed really strange but after reading the comments all is clear sex virus, currupting demons etc.

startet the game and everything looked like a nice slice of life story but after reading about the demon crap it is just another supernatural corruption game.

like i said started nice but now i know what i can expect and dont have to follow its a pity cause like some posters said a style like GGGB in this quality could have been interesting but i think its the typical problem fast sex scenes sell more^^

The game will have much more content than just demons or viruses. For instance the blowjob scene was a romantic evening with the fiance. Were demons or viruses mentioned at all there? Aside from Mary the waitress saying something along the lines of "we haven't had many customers in here since the virus".

It will always be possible to play on a spectrum of possibilities. Inevitably there will be certain bits of content that some players enjoy and other players do not enjoy because different people like different things.Think of the game built in a sort of "Salad Bar" style where you can pick and choose what sort of content you want to go for. One of the earliest questions is transgender on or off for instance.

Not really shooting for fast sex scenes. Rose isn't going to get a strange dick on day 2. We are not going to blue ball to the level of AWAM though not even close. That is unless of course the player chooses the blue ball options that will be there because we are not going to force any of the sex scenes.

 

[Olivia_V]

Bloated file size? We got over a thousand HD renders in there. It's just over 1 GB uncompressed and like 240 MB compressed. At this point in time a massive file size is not of great concern. If it comes to the point where we are dealing with a truly gargantuan file over ten updates from now we will either go for a strictly compressed version or move on to a Part 2. If making a part 2 as seen with games such as Dating my daughter or Fashion Business. It's a non problem currently and when it becomes a problem we have a solution that others have used that should work for us as well as it has for them.

Writing efficiency? I'm not making a technical manual on how to dissemble a corroborator here. If that were the case it would only be the absolute most pertinent details in a simplified step by step fashion as efficiently as possible. It's about the journey not the destination.

Foreshadowing can come in the form of either visual or verbal/textual. For a visual foreshadow you are absolutely correct that it would be important to come prior to a render, but not so much with a verbal or textual one foreshadow because I can simply say that the character said anything no matter what the renders are assuming it's renders that would look to have talking going on.

You are absolutely correct that 3 shots of someone getting into a shower could be considered to be over kill. However to say that it hurts the player experience at all to have those extra renders it's simply absurd. There is an old saying "It's better to have too much than not enough" It can make it feel like more of a scene with more renders. For instance sometimes we will do a single shot of Rose in the car from A to B. Would we get our point across better if we had her adjust the radio in her car for a moment and keep on driving? Not really but doing something like that would make it feel more real.

When I'm writing a scene I'll sometimes give him a bit of a loose outline of what I want the scene to be. Say I'll describe 20 renders visually very descriptively in writing that I want. Then I'll tell him (actually got this as a standing order) if it looks like we need something as an "in between render" go ahead and put that in too. Then sometimes he will hand me back 30 or 35 renders when all I asked for 20. I'm not one to complain when he does that sort of thing putting in a little extra hard work expanding a scenes visuals.

What one thinks of as "bloat" another thinks of as a "full belly". Different strokes for different folks.

You have 1000 uncompressed images on your first release. First. How big will you project your final file size be? How big a percentage of the overall story have you shown so far? If you're planning ten releases at an average of 1 GB a release, that's 10 GB for a visual novel. If you're planning 30? OMG...

And absolutely, padding hurts the player experience. Indirectly, the download will be a bitch considering it's a visual novel and not a game. Directly, constant quick cutting (because we're certainly not going to dwell on a second or third image of the same thing) hurts the eyes and tires the mind. Bad pacing, the inevitable consequence of putting too much in, is very annoying. It doesn't "feel like more of a scene" (especially since there is nothing here soothing the mind in the optical way 24 fps does), it feels like you're milking time. It feels like, well, padding. When you're watching a a car scene in a movie, you don't watch the entire 30 minute drive from point A to point B. That's boring and unnecessary to the experience of a story. You don't watch the driver fix her mirror, make her hand signals, fiddle with her Spotify, etc. Unless that action leads to something that will enhance the experience, you do not need it, and you delay the journey the audience is taking with you for absolutely nothing. You're like a museum guide who stops to comment on the texture of the velvet roping in-between painting exhibits.

And absolutely, yes, writing efficiency. It's not just for training manuals. And this is especially important because a. you're working with a team and b. eventually you'll be taking patron money for this. And judging by your response, you have no clue how enormous the amount of "pertinent details" are, especially in a collaborative creative work. Writing efficiency means that I am able to give every necessary writing detail on my end with as few revisions as possible (meaning that any revision will be due to compromises and additions due to collaboration and not because "I forgot to add something" etc), so that the other person can do her job as comprehensively and efficiently as possible. Have you seen a movie outline? A sequence treatment? A shooting script? Story board? Those are not "simplified". In fact, by the time the camera rolls, there should be as little room for mistakes as possible. I can't go to the director in the middle of viewing the day's rushes and telling him he must reshoot a scene to add this silly joke I came up with. If your visual teams is spending more time rendering unnecessary images, it's because you guys went ahead without enough of the "pertinent details". Hell, if that is indeed your "standing order", then much of the inefficiency and unnecessary padding is rooted on your end and not his.

 

[Olivia_V]

Why would she immediately jump to the conclusion of "I am straight" if she never handled a cock before? Thornberg mentioned the empty folder in the dream as in trying to make Rose as much of a blank slate as possible for the player to mold to their preferences. When a gay / lesbian person comes out it's often times a different experience for different people. Just because someone comes out it does not mean they are going to immediately jump into bed with the next person they see.

I have played a lot of adult games, and I have read and interacted in the forums a bit as well. A common theme I have seen in some female protagonist games is the good fashioned "Is there a lesbian only path?" To avoid getting that comment 3 times a week for the next 6 months I just put it out there early letting players who will want to play in such a way such a path will be possible.

Also JOHN is a great game, I love that game.

How can you possibly think that a lifelong virgin saving herself for het marriage immediately jumps to "I'm gay" when she feels uncomfortable handling cock for the first time? Especially one that expects to get married to a high school sweetheart she isn't being shotgunned to? For a lot of sheltered women, first time sexual contact of any sort is uncomfortable for many reasons. They don't just fall into "welp, I'm gay" without establishing a lot of other factors you haven't established yet. The cardinal rule of storytelling is "show, don't tell", especially in a visual medium. You're expecting to get with telling what you will only get with showing.

As for the "blank slate", there's "blank slate", then there's "program this fleshbot".

You want to avoid the "is there a lesbian path" question in the forums, then just state outright that there is one in the intro. You've already given away that trans content can be turned off, so why not say that there is a lesbian path? Then you can bring about the lesbian path in a more organic and satisfying manner from that point instead of a foced-looking "coming out".

Like, if she chooses one girl, and if the "lesbian path" milestone variable is triggered (I suppose it was the "didn't touch the dick" option earlier), she could catch herself admiring the beauty of her chosen bridesmaid. If she chooses both of them, she could tell herself that she hopes they both make up because they look great together, then wonder why she thought that way. She can then either dismiss those thoughts or let them shake her psyche, then add a further "lesbian path" variable on that second choice.

 

[yihman1]

You have 1000 uncompressed images on your first release. First. How big will you project your final file size be? How big a percentage of the overall story have you shown so far? If you're planning ten releases at an average of 1 GB a release, that's 10 GB for a visual novel. If you're planning 30? OMG...

And absolutely, padding hurts the player experience. Indirectly, the download will be a bitch considering it's a visual novel and not a game. Directly, constant quick cutting (because we're certainly not going to dwell on a second or third image of the same thing) hurts the eyes and tires the mind. Bad pacing, the inevitable consequence of putting too much in, is very annoying. It doesn't "feel like more of a scene" (especially since there is nothing here soothing the mind in the optical way 24 fps does), it feels like you're milking time. It feels like, well, padding. When you're watching a a car scene in a movie, you don't watch the entire 30 minute drive from point A to point B. That's boring and unnecessary to the experience of a story. You don't watch the driver fix her mirror, make her hand signals, fiddle with her Spotify, etc. Unless that action leads to something that will enhance the experience, you do not need it, and you delay the journey the audience is taking with you for absolutely nothing. You're like a museum guide who stops to comment on the texture of the velvet roping in-between painting exhibits.

And absolutely, yes, writing efficiency. It's not just for training manuals. And this is especially important because a. you're working with a team and b. eventually you'll be taking patron money for this. And judging by your response, you have no clue how enormous the amount of "pertinent details" are, especially in a collaborative creative work. Writing efficiency means that I am able to give every necessary writing detail on my end with as few revisions as possible (meaning that any revision will be due to compromises and additions due to collaboration and not because "I forgot to add something" etc), so that the other person can do her job as comprehensively and efficiently as possible. Have you seen a movie outline? A sequence treatment? A shooting script? Story board? Those are not "simplified". In fact, by the time the camera rolls, there should be as little room for mistakes as possible. I can't go to the director in the middle of viewing the day's rushes and telling him he must reshoot a scene to add this silly joke I came up with. If your visual teams is spending more time rendering unnecessary images, it's because you guys went ahead without enough of the "pertinent details". Hell, if that is indeed your "standing order", then much of the inefficiency and unnecessary padding is rooted on your end and not his.

Once Doc and Marty get back to my place in their Delorean I will be able to give you a good answer on the final project size. Joking aside the final project size will depend on the level of support built on Patreon. If we do 400 Renders per month as planned it would cost us about $800 USD per month to hit that target. Some people have been generous and we appreciate that we have gotten 8 new supporters since release 2 days ago. That's our break even point at the rate we plan on working. If we can get to the break even point we can go on making the game for many years to come. If we round the project out at some point we will probably start another one. So a low ball would be 10 to 15 playable days and a high ball would be 25 to 30 playable days (depending on the level of support we get). We will complete this project one way or another. We got day 1 done. Day 2 outlined and know what is going in there. I have half of day 3 planned already, and have endings planned but between day 3 and endings is a good general idea but not written form yet.

A visual novel is not a movie or even a book for that matter. Writing for one is much different than writing for a movie or book or play. You must have multiple paths that all make sense instead of just 1 path start to finish. The higher level of interactions and outcomes makes it a very different beast. I have written some erotic stories before under pseudonyms and those are much easier to make than visual novels. When you make a visual novel it is like writing a number of beautiful pieces of erotica and then stringing them together in a web that all connects just right in harmony.

2 or 3 extra renders =/= 30 minutes of a drive