Ren'Py Desert Stalker [v0.16b] [Zetan]

[cccxxx]

love the graphics and the story - wish there was mooore

 

[vecinogenerico]

Don't know if this was already reported or not, but there is a bug with the slave in the basement (fairy I think is her name)
Second time you chose to "give her food" you end up in and endless loop. All you can do is "feed her". There are no other options or way out of the scene

 

[Yngling]

The more choices, the less meaningful or substantial they are.

Excellent point!

Agree with the rest as well.

To be honest, this is probably the reason why this update felt a bit short, even though there was actually plenty content in terms of renders / words / lines etc. The only stand-alone scene was the one with Ain at the obelisk, and while that was great it didn't contain sex or choices.

 

[Kellermann]

Kinda awkward for the PC to be groping his wife at the in-laws' place while his daughter is risking her life!

I don't know man, I would grope the wife even at a funeral. Daughter could be on a deadly mission to save the entire planet and I'd still be thinking about sex. Horn dogs gonna horn. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Cynicaladm]

...

Yes, this is a work in progress, so there are scenes that are self contained, and they might not always include sexy times because that is not their purpose, and there are scenes that foreshadow and lay the groundwork for the characters to be guided in certain directions

The only plot relevant item where you are left "hanging" mid event (debatable because it makes sense to split it into 2 days) in this update is that we announce the second part of the Hive quest on the mission board and have moved its production up 1 release later, and yes, we did that without changing the questlog into "to be continued" because there were a few technical issues that prevented us from doing so.

Other than that, the only thing where you are left "incomplete" is the harem, which contains a couple of greyed out options that you haven't access to yet, which are plot dependent. We decided to basically spoiler that there will be multiple variations of scenes involving the people whose image you see in the harem when they are both ready to be released AND the characters are available and not someplace else, because of the point in the plot you decide to have a look at the harem.

as for the other instances you mention, Kateryna's opening towards preggo fetish, our first visit to Omar's place...yes they don't resolve immediately... there are in game reasons for that... for one, build up in the narrative, pacing... then the fact that we have a living world that has a number of plots that come together to make the overall plot...which means that the various moving parts are ready when they are ready. We can only do so much and you will never get a "next release" that resolves all of the plot points and then starts new plot points in the subsequent release. This is just not that kind of game.
So yes.. there is foreshadowing, and we don't really believe we should spell out everything to the minute detail.. so, foreshadowing of what, is for you to find out playing/waiting for the next update... But I don't think we've made it too hard to guess what it might be.

Put simply, the world of Zeta does not aseptically revolve around what the player wants and that's it. You have a lot of agency, but the other characters have their own kinks, fetishes, agendas, identities. Things that are revealed gradually as you explore the relationships with them, others that are evident from the start...and yes, there are exceptions.. there are circumstances that are set in stone such as the relationship with Zahra (and her character traits) or Ain, which are established since before you even start the game...
Your task is to navigate those events to steer them in the directions you like best.

This will never be a game where every scene resolves into a sex act.. and yes, until it is well and truly done, there will be occasions in which a scene is there purely to set the stage, to titillate, to introduce things, themes, characters.

do we have a lot of moving parts? yes.. possibly even too many... certainly too many to see them all progress over the course of 1 or even 2 updates... this will change over time as certain plot elements solidify or run their course.

The Omar/Rabiah stuff for example, is it supposed to be foreshadowing sharing or cucking? Or maybe he cucks you? Choice between the 3? Oh and "encouraging" Katrina to be pregnant vs "steering her away", so is that a choice for preggo fetish featuring her...? And what's the point of that considering the PC is married, in a relationship with the queen and earlier in the day meets a pregnant woman carrying his offspring?

Going backwards... That the Vessel of the Temple carries the PC's offspring is entirely your choice.. you could also have decided that she does not. Kateryna's character revolving around a fixation about pregnancy is also your call.. you can discourage it if you decide it doesn't make sense to you for Z to have that option...
We provide options. but when you make the call, don't blame us for the call you decide to make.
If you don't like the notion of her having a pregnancy fetish because you don't think it fits with, say, the household or the context, don't follow that path.. it does not come at the exclusion of her character, she will do other stuff...
Does that mean that making a choice means you follow 1 path and not the other, therefore you get one scene and not the other? yes. That's a conscious decision because in DS, choices must have consequences...

Does it mean that a fairly big update looks smaller because you only see part of it? Probably, yes (won't be the case every time, but occasionally yes.. for instance, if you killed the blue haired girl in the market, you don't get to boink her in this update).
We are writing a game that aims at creating a believable and complete narrative once it is fully done. Until then, there will be inevitably some things that feel a bit off, some loose ends and threads, maybe even some rewrites.
Yes, Omar's House is fertile territory to explore that line of kinks... how exactly, will be something you will discover as the game goes on... again, this is a matter of pacing and trying to be just a little bit realistic in setting the stage for the sexy times.

(and yes, I realise that this may not work out as intended every time, and that sometimes the pacing is actually a little off, but we do our best)


Now for the real worry that I take away from your post...
you say the event progression needs fixing.. I was fairly sure we did that with the public release (9.b)... if that is not the case, I would like some more info..
What exactly is out of order? can you give me some more detail so we can actually act on the problem? feel free to reach out on the discord.
Thank you.

EDIT: apologies for the rambling nature of the post.. I am in bed with the flu and not firing on all cylinders.

 

[Discontented]

"Ngh"

Hmm, I'm more of a "Hnngh" person myself, but "Ngh..." works in a pinch, especially if it's an impregnation "Ngh..."

For some reason this dev wrote the [$ thug_pregnant = True] line at the beginning of that scene rather than at the end of it. The "Ngh" was when the MC picked her up off the ground.

 

[egy man]

i want Update Only 0.09b not the full game ... can someone help me with that?

 

[Aioto]

The only stand-alone scene was the one with Ain at the obelisk, and while that was great it didn't contain sex or choices.

It did have choices, you have to choose whether to end it early or not, then choose how to respond to her worries, usually between an uplifting and positive thinking response and a more realistic "it is what it is" response.

 

[Cynicaladm]

There are too many moving parts/branching subplots related to fetishes and characters in the game, regardless of what those fetishes might be. Although given the existence of a certain loud and obnoxious type of poster on this site, I understand why you'd think I was fetish shaming. Not my intention at all, I'll fap to whatever gets me off and I'm usually not offended by depictions of the things that don't.

Well like I said events don't seem to track the context of where Shani is with her quest. Examples off top of head -
>Ain's quality time triggers before Ain asks you to do it (after Shani leaves).
>Idk if the Rabiah visit is supposed to happen before or after but it happened after for me. Plus the narrative incongruity of being concerned for the landgirl going away then gallivanting around town while she's gone.
>In general, quite a few events that happen before Shani's departure detract from it's urgency. Most of them should in fact happen after she has returned. The departure period should be dedicated to main plot faction quests etc. like the elfs.

ah. that.. yes.. so it's not so much a mistake (we had a few things that were knocked out of order on the pre-release and we fixed them afterwards, hence my confusion/question).. as a structural pacing choice.
the game is fairly sandboxy in the way you can play certain events pretty much on the same day/rest cycle, whereas others are gated.. this does create for different orders in which you can play things and not always the order is optimal in terms of pacing... or rather, it will never satisfy everyone.
as for Shani being in the zone and everybody else sort of having to sit on their thumbs and wait for her return with bathed breath.. we did consider that path (I did, Z not so much)... but given the nature of the Zone itself and given how time works in there (and finally also given the size and complexity of the zone production wise) we have decided against going that path... based fundamentally on 2 considerations:
1) in game: the world keeps moving and doesn't stand still, events still go on. On top of that, the whole family has been preparing for some time and this apocalyptic setting is sort of grounded on the notion that you do your best to pursue your goals and that what happens once things are out of your hands is best not to dwell on. Are the characters worried about Shani? most certainly, but it is expected... also, offgame...
2) off game if we did focus on Shani, you would get anywhere from 2 to maybe even 4 updates dedicated to Shani, exclusively with very little wancakes, and almost no screen time for anybody else... on top of that, many a player has expressed how they will simply skip the content that is from her POV and rather wait for it to be recapped when she is back... that is of course their prerogative, but it does mean that we would have a substantial drop in interest in the game by a rather large number of the players. for at least a couple of updates...
That could potentially kill the game in terms of sustainability for Z, who is basically paying rent through it.

So we are going to move the rest of the plots along, side by side with Shani's content. Once that whole chapter is done and dusted, we can always retroactively gate things in a specific order (or let the player chose what he wants to progress first)... To do so in medias res when we don't have a 100% defined list of scenes that go in each update and we don't have a clear picture of what needs to be gated behind what, would not be workable.

This may indeed give an odd vibe of characters ignoring Shani's situation (actually the queen at one point asks about it).. but it's the best we can do, for now.

 

[Dylan741]

ah. that.. yes.. so it's not so much a mistake (we had a few things that were knocked out of order on the pre-release and we fixed them afterwards, hence my confusion/question).. as a structural pacing choice.
the game is fairly sandboxy in the way you can play certain events pretty much on the same day/rest cycle, whereas others are gated.. this does create for different orders in which you can play things and not always the order is optimal in terms of pacing... or rather, it will never satisfy everyone.
as for Shani being in the zone and everybody else sort of having to sit on their thumbs and wait for her return with bathed breath.. we did consider that path (I did, Z not so much)... but given the nature of the Zone itself and given how time works in there (and finally also given the size and complexity of the zone production wise) we have decided against going that path... based fundamentally on 2 considerations:
1) in game: the world keeps moving and doesn't stand still, events still go on. On top of that, the whole family has been preparing for some time and this apocalyptic setting is sort of grounded on the notion that you do your best to pursue your goals and that what happens once things are out of your hands is best not to dwell on. Are the characters worried about Shani? most certainly, but it is expected... also, offgame...
2) off game if we did focus on Shani, you would get anywhere from 2 to maybe even 4 updates dedicated to Shani, exclusively with very little wancakes, and almost no screen time for anybody else... on top of that, many a player has expressed how they will simply skip the content that is from her POV and rather wait for it to be recapped when she is back... that is of course their prerogative, but it does mean that we would have a substantial drop in interest in the game by a rather large number of the players. for at least a couple of updates...
That could potentially kill the game in terms of sustainability for Z, who is basically paying rent through it.

So we are going to move the rest of the plots along side by side with Shani's content. Once that whole chapter is done and dusted, we can always retroactively gate things in a specific order (or let the player chose what he wants to progress first)... To do so in medias res when we don't have a 100% defined list of scenes that go in each update and we don't have a clear picture of what needs to be gated behind what, would not be workable.

This may indeed give an odd vibe of characters ignoring Shani's situation (actually the queen at one point asks about it).. but it's the best we can do, for now.

Thanks for the insight about the process and the decisions you take it was a very interesting read Cynicaladm.
About the fact of the off vibe in my humble opinion it's not the case, from Zaton ( or Seth as I decided to name him) to Ain they all show how much they care about Shani, but at the same time as you correctly said they can't stay still until she will come back.
I know it may sound cruel, but live goes on regardless and given the realistic open world setup you created it's normal that all the characters need to move on until she will be back.
Also branching the game with the Shani perspective at this point of the game, still in it's initial start phase ( at least I see it like that) would be counterproductive, imho.

 

[Spfjolietjake]

The change log is telling me there is more to this update than what I've played but I have no explanation marks or hints what to do next.

This is the only issue I have with vns like this. I wanna play all the available content just don't know how. Even with a walkthrough mod

 

[GetOutOfMyLab]

The change log is telling me there is more to this update than what I've played but I have no explanation marks or hints what to do next.

This is the only issue I have with vns like this. I wanna play all the available content just don't know how. Even with a walkthrough mod

What are you missing?

 

[Spfjolietjake]

What are you missing?

It says there are 4 sister in law visits (I only got 2), and supposedly supposed to bang the blurple colored hair chick.
The change log says 9 events total but I don't know what constitutes an event

 

[GetOutOfMyLab]

It says there are 4 sister in law visits (I only got 2), and supposedly supposed to bang the blurple colored hair chick.
The change log says 9 events total but I don't know what constitutes an event

I'm assuming the events are the first event when you go there and you're all in the room together. Then there's a Nadia event, a Rabiah event, and then an event with Omar. The latter three you trigger by clicking their icon to visit them. IIRC, visiting an additional time adds a little more content.

As for blurple hair girl, she's the one that tried to kidnap Ain. That scene with her only happens if you don't kill her.

 

[Spfjolietjake]

I'm assuming the events are the first event when you go there and you're all in the room together. Then there's a Nadia event, a Rabiah event, and then an event with Omar. The latter three you trigger by clicking their icon to visit them. IIRC, visiting an additional time adds a little more content.

As for blurple hair girl, she's the one that tried to kidnap Ain. That scene with her only happens if you don't kill her.

Ahhhh thank you. Seriously you saved me a bit of frustration. I was thinking one of the punks not the kidnapper. Looks like I'll have to go back and let her live sometime

Again thank you for the much appreciated help

 

[Paz]

...but I don't know what constitutes an event

As a rule of thumb, we refer to "events" as scenes or parts of scenes that the player can actively trigger (or in certain occasions be automatically triggered -like the guard summoning you to the palace-).
Self-contained bits that once you start them, you have to go through them.

So, for instance, in Rabiah's house there are 4 of them as in, 4 separate things you can choose or trigger to see (2 the first time you visit them and 2 the second time).

I do understand that they can be easy to miss at times (and I don't like it either) and it's something we do work towards improving that, with the quest log/button markers/whatnot, but personally I'm not really a fan of an "update checklist in-game". I think it detracts from the whole thing a bit :/

 

[Spfjolietjake]

As a rule of thumb, we refer to "events" as scenes or parts of scenes that the player can actively trigger (or in certain occasions be automatically triggered -like the guard summoning you to the palace-).
Self-contained bits that once you start them, you have to go through them.

So, for instance, in Rabiah's house there are 4 of them as in, 4 separate things you can choose or trigger to see (2 the first time you visit them and 2 the second time).

I do understand that they can be easy to miss at times (and I don't like it either) and it's something we do work towards improving that, with the quest log/button markers/whatnot, but personally I'm not really a fan of an "update checklist in-game". I think it detracts from the whole thing a bit :/

Thanks for the insight. The way it is now kind of gives me Fomo. Yet I understand what you are saying .

 

[junj]

Please help Idk how to trigger the thug girl scene? I tried many ways but to no avail.

 

[mightybored]

Please help Idk how to trigger the thug girl scene? I tried many ways but to no avail.

It's the girl that tried to kidnap Ain, so if you killed her, she won't show up now.

 

[rainnnnnn]

Just started this. Is this one of those games where you need to be an asshole to get with the girls?