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

[Daquarius]

i could be wrong but doesnt letting the elf die get you the scene with the redhead?

also maybe the reward to some of those scenes like killing the black girl is in fact the act of killing her itself. instead of letting her live and maybe get a reward (which if a hot girls is involved chances are she'll be the reward.) instead your choosing immediate satisfaction over long term sexy times. again to my earlier point not all the sex is "nice" so although some options dont give you an alternate sex scene that your looking for. you do get a different reward. again its a matter of perspective,

dont get me wrong i understand what your saying. but dont expect alot of sexy time if you kill all the girls. also in terms of materialistic rewards. if you kill the black girl not sure how or why you'd go to her house to loot her if you dont know where its at or have a reason to go there.

killing the asians then im not sure how youd get the new truck. it might've xplained it already but since i never let them die i didnt see the alternate path of how he got the truck if he did.

Yes, you get a scene in the bathroom where the redhair girl is introduced. If you don't side with the decayed, you meet the redhair girl anyway, since she's sold to you. The plot works better with this little introduction, but the price is to kill the elf/give up the relic for this event to trigger. That's why a suggested to make the redhair girl a decayed only choice, since she's already better introduced in this path, and it will give a reason to side with the decayed.

 

[Cynicaladm]

Consider the early stage the game is at.
Most of the game, so far, has been about setting up content, factions, locations to explore and such. it stands to reason that if you kill the girl that is meant to introduce you to a faction, you will not get that introduction. The reward of good-ish behaviour in this context is what puts you in a place to, in the future, make choices that will lead to developments that might be mutually exclusive.
We do have a necessity to force through certain plot elements to simplify the work on the render side of things... for instance, you will always find your way to the new car, whether you kill Asani and/or Kyra or not.. (if you kill both, someone else will give you a clue to where to find it). This is because it would make no sense to have to double the workload on any panel that includes the car... because you'd have to make a render for the old car and one for the new car in every future scene, which is just a waste of time, from a production pov.
As it is, you can make choices that already come with a degree of variation. For instance, if you leave the decayed alive, they later reward you with an extra scene with Fairy...whether you allow Ivy to die or whether you buy her from them using the statuette. We have made it so that even if you choose to buy her from them, you still get Emilia, albeit at a later stage.. so by siding with the uggos and doing the morally questionable thing of stiffing the queen and buying yourself a slave, you don't loose anything but gain a scene with Fairy and get Emilia later in the game.
In the future, there might be situations where indeed choosing a faction makes it so that other factions either close their doors to you or reduce your influence on them considerably.. but that is very much something that we must still define and might also not happen quite in the terms I just used.
I am aware that there are players that want "everything in one go" and want all of the girls at the same time. I assume someone will make a mod to make that possible... but we aim to tell a story where events that happen carry consequences in the long run, and, ultimately, not all girls will be happy with all of the choices you will make.
Yes, this is a harem game; no, it does not mean that any and all of the girls you see on screen will be yours foreverandever all at the same time.. if that's your aim, I suggest you play harem hotel or corruption.
In fact... Saving all of the girls might very well bring some serious consequences later in the game.. not all of them are your mindless slaves.
It is not yet defined, but there's a good chance that to see every sexy content of the game, by the time it is finished, you will have to do at least 1 or 2 playthroughs after the first one... or at least occasionally scumsave and scroll back.
I realise that some of the players will be annoyed by this... I guess we will do our best to make the replay value worth it, and the story different enough to make the replay a different experience. I say it again, we're trying to write a compelling and coherent story and have it be open enough to give the player agency... it's a difficult balance to achieve and we are fully aware that we won't be able to make everybody happy.
For the players who are playing the game purely for the sex scenes, I am sure there will be a good samaritan out there that unlocks the gallery for them whether they play the game or not.
Let's face it, we all know how this forum works... a bunch of you will probably come to this thread in the future, to ask for a full save, so they have the gallery unlocked already and don't have to scroll through the game, no matter how little grind there is in it... you will understand me if I say that we don't make the game with those "players" in mind.

 

[dolfe67]

I was thinking, what if we save a woman who isn't automatically hypnotised by the power of MC's magic penis. Maybe you save a girl who initially acts like she is with you, but then later tries to kill you, or steal your ride...or fire bomb your estate. I might actually consider killing her instead of capturing her if she double-crossed me like that. Oh, who am I kidding? I'm going to enslave her no matter what.

It almost happens with the elf : you save her to enslave her but she escapes and could have killed you with that knife throw when you exit the Queen's

 

[JaxMan]

Consider the early stage the game is at.
Most of the game, so far, has been about setting up content, factions, locations to explore and such. it stands to reason that if you kill the girl that is meant to introduce you to a faction, you will not get that introduction. The reward of good-ish behaviour in this context is what puts you in a place to, in the future, make choices that will lead to developments that might be mutually exclusive.
We do have a necessity to force through certain plot elements to simplify the work on the render side of things... for instance, you will always find your way to the new car, whether you kill Asani and/or Kyra or not.. (if you kill both, someone else will give you a clue to where to find it). This is because it would make no sense to have to double the workload on any panel that includes the car... because you'd have to make a render for the old car and one for the new car in every future scene, which is just a waste of time, from a production pov.
As it is, you can make choices that already come with a degree of variation. For instance, if you leave the decayed alive, they later reward you with an extra scene with Fairy...whether you allow Ivy to die or whether you buy her from them using the statuette. We have made it so that even if you choose to buy her from them, you still get Emilia, albeit at a later stage.. so by siding with the uggos and doing the morally questionable thing of stiffing the queen and buying yourself a slave, you don't loose anything but gain a scene with Fairy and get Emilia later in the game.
In the future, there might be situations where indeed choosing a faction makes it so that other factions either close their doors to you or reduce your influence on them considerably.. but that is very much something that we must still define and might also not happen quite in the terms I just used.
I am aware that there are players that want "everything in one go" and want all of the girls at the same time. I assume someone will make a mod to make that possible... but we aim to tell a story where events that happen carry consequences in the long run, and, ultimately, not all girls will be happy with all of the choices you will make.
Yes, this is a harem game; no, it does not mean that any and all of the girls you see on screen will be yours foreverandever all at the same time.. if that's your aim, I suggest you play harem hotel or corruption.
In fact... Saving all of the girls might very well bring some serious consequences later in the game.. not all of them are your mindless slaves.
It is not yet defined, but there's a good chance that to see every sexy content of the game, by the time it is finished, you will have to do at least 1 or 2 playthroughs after the first one... or at least occasionally scumsave and scroll back.
I realise that some of the players will be annoyed by this... I guess we will do our best to make the replay value worth it, and the story different enough to make the replay a different experience. I say it again, we're trying to write a compelling and coherent story and have it be open enough to give the player agency... it's a difficult balance to achieve and we are fully aware that we won't be able to make everybody happy.
For the players who are playing the game purely for the sex scenes, I am sure there will be a good samaritan out there that unlocks the gallery for them whether they play the game or not.
Let's face it, we all know how this forum works... a bunch of you will probably come to this thread in the future, to ask for a full save, so they have the gallery unlocked already and don't have to scroll through the game, no matter how little grind there is in it... you will understand me if I say that we don't make the game with those "players" in mind.

Just my opinion, but I do hope that you guys have the whole story already plotted out and aren't making it up as you go along putting in content suggested to you. People will always suggest what kinks they want to see in game or how they want the story to go and that can definitely ruin things if you're constantly accommodating their desires. Stick to the story you want to tell, how you want to tell it and the scenes to tell that story. Not everything in a novel or movie is liked by readers or viewers but they will stay to the end if it is a good read or movie and if not, that's life. I think you've done a great job to this point.

 

[Kellermann]

Most of the game, so far, has been about setting up content, factions, locations to explore and such. it stands to reason that if you kill the girl that is meant to introduce you to a faction, you will not get that introduction. The reward of good-ish behaviour in this context is what puts you in a place to, in the future, make choices that will lead to developments that might be mutually exclusive.

so by siding with the uggos and doing the morally questionable thing of stiffing the queen and buying yourself a slave, you don't loose anything but gain a scene with Fairy and get Emilia later in the game.

I kept the uggos alive only because I thought their town's fuel reserves would be of extreme importance (similar to Mad Max) later in the game and I didn't want to lose access to that. Also, I didn't think it was too morally questionable to give the treasure to the twins to save a life. That seemed less brutal than murdering them and giving the treasure to the queen. The statue seemed a pretty trinket rather than an item of immense importance and I thought I could find another one for the queen somewhere else. That turned out to be wrong.

we aim to tell a story where events that happen carry consequences in the long run, and, ultimately, not all girls will be happy with all of the choices you will make.

I knew I should have kept my big mouth shut. Sorry bros. I'll just sneak out the back. Pretend this conversation never happened.

 

[VepsrP]

Yes, you get a scene in the bathroom where the redhair girl is introduced. If you don't side with the decayed, you meet the redhair girl anyway, since she's sold to you. The plot works better with this little introduction, but the price is to kill the elf/give up the relic for this event to trigger. That's why a suggested to make the redhair girl a decayed only choice, since she's already better introduced in this path, and it will give a reason to side with the decayed.

Why are you so drawn to the side of the broken ones? Got your harem and enjoyed it.

 

[Bruno3]

Consider the early stage the game is at.
Most of the game, so far, has been about setting up content, factions, locations to explore and such. it stands to reason that if you kill the girl that is meant to introduce you to a faction, you will not get that introduction. The reward of good-ish behaviour in this context is what puts you in a place to, in the future, make choices that will lead to developments that might be mutually exclusive.
We do have a necessity to force through certain plot elements to simplify the work on the render side of things... for instance, you will always find your way to the new car, whether you kill Asani and/or Kyra or not.. (if you kill both, someone else will give you a clue to where to find it). This is because it would make no sense to have to double the workload on any panel that includes the car... because you'd have to make a render for the old car and one for the new car in every future scene, which is just a waste of time, from a production pov.
As it is, you can make choices that already come with a degree of variation. For instance, if you leave the decayed alive, they later reward you with an extra scene with Fairy...whether you allow Ivy to die or whether you buy her from them using the statuette. We have made it so that even if you choose to buy her from them, you still get Emilia, albeit at a later stage.. so by siding with the uggos and doing the morally questionable thing of stiffing the queen and buying yourself a slave, you don't loose anything but gain a scene with Fairy and get Emilia later in the game.
In the future, there might be situations where indeed choosing a faction makes it so that other factions either close their doors to you or reduce your influence on them considerably.. but that is very much something that we must still define and might also not happen quite in the terms I just used.
I am aware that there are players that want "everything in one go" and want all of the girls at the same time. I assume someone will make a mod to make that possible... but we aim to tell a story where events that happen carry consequences in the long run, and, ultimately, not all girls will be happy with all of the choices you will make.
Yes, this is a harem game; no, it does not mean that any and all of the girls you see on screen will be yours foreverandever all at the same time.. if that's your aim, I suggest you play harem hotel or corruption.
In fact... Saving all of the girls might very well bring some serious consequences later in the game.. not all of them are your mindless slaves.
It is not yet defined, but there's a good chance that to see every sexy content of the game, by the time it is finished, you will have to do at least 1 or 2 playthroughs after the first one... or at least occasionally scumsave and scroll back.
I realise that some of the players will be annoyed by this... I guess we will do our best to make the replay value worth it, and the story different enough to make the replay a different experience. I say it again, we're trying to write a compelling and coherent story and have it be open enough to give the player agency... it's a difficult balance to achieve and we are fully aware that we won't be able to make everybody happy.
For the players who are playing the game purely for the sex scenes, I am sure there will be a good samaritan out there that unlocks the gallery for them whether they play the game or not.
Let's face it, we all know how this forum works... a bunch of you will probably come to this thread in the future, to ask for a full save, so they have the gallery unlocked already and don't have to scroll through the game, no matter how little grind there is in it... you will understand me if I say that we don't make the game with those "players" in mind.

Annoyed by this?
Hell no, im liking what im hearing so far.
Im all about choices choices and choices, the more the better. Dont be afraid to experiment with them and i dont care if some lead to exclusive scenes.
If you can make a game that every player had a different experience than another, then thats a win for me, cuz i like the idea that every player had an unique playthrough, so it'd be fun to discuss with a friend what happened in his world, did you side with decayed and whatnot

 

[Kellermann]

so it'd be fun to discuss with a friend what happened in his world, did you side with decayed and whatnot

It would be fun to just have a friend.

But seriously, yeah I like having choices in visual novels. I do like a happy medium though. I don't want to have to play a game 30 times to see all of the content. By playthrough #10 you already know every scene and every line of dialogue by heart and probably just fast forward to the new content. These devs have so far kept it all very reasonable. Right now, I just have two playthroughs (one canon and one to get any remaining sex scenes I missed), but it sounds like that may branch out to one or two more in the future. I don't mind that number too much though.

 

[Cynicaladm]

Just my opinion, but I do hope that you guys have the whole story already plotted out and aren't making it up as you go along putting in content suggested to you. People will always suggest what kinks they want to see in game or how they want the story to go and that can definitely ruin things if you're constantly accommodating their desires. Stick to the story you want to tell, how you want to tell it and the scenes to tell that story. Not everything in a novel or movie is liked by readers or viewers but they will stay to the end if it is a good read or movie and if not, that's life. I think you've done a great job to this point.

we have the major plot elements reasonably pinned down, and several of the potential endings are also clear (at least to Z, afaik)... how we get there and how long it will take is a work in progress that leaves room for adding things, if they feel right and appropriate, if we feel they contribute to the story and/or the worldbuilding.
on the whole, we don't listen to suggestions a great deal (at least, I don't )... and between the 3 of us, we have enough kinky ideas to not need further input on that side of things.
we are open to suggestions, but mainly for the sake of seeing the dialogue they bring on the discord... On the whole we don't follow through on them, because suggestions often clash with what we already have in mind, and when they actually happen to nail/guess/deduce what we do have planned, we don't want to say because we don't want to spoil it, or give the impression that a scene is in the game because someone asked for it.

 

[Regardie]

Cynicaladm you should reach out to the mods to get a game developer tag.

 

[Cynicaladm]

Cynicaladm you should reach out to the mods to get a game developer tag.

thanks but nah.. most people in this thread know who I am.. and the main dev is ZetanDS.. I'm happy this way.

 

[Daquarius]

Consider the early stage the game is at.
Most of the game, so far, has been about setting up content, factions, locations to explore and such. it stands to reason that if you kill the girl that is meant to introduce you to a faction, you will not get that introduction. The reward of good-ish behaviour in this context is what puts you in a place to, in the future, make choices that will lead to developments that might be mutually exclusive.
We do have a necessity to force through certain plot elements to simplify the work on the render side of things... for instance, you will always find your way to the new car, whether you kill Asani and/or Kyra or not.. (if you kill both, someone else will give you a clue to where to find it). This is because it would make no sense to have to double the workload on any panel that includes the car... because you'd have to make a render for the old car and one for the new car in every future scene, which is just a waste of time, from a production pov.
As it is, you can make choices that already come with a degree of variation. For instance, if you leave the decayed alive, they later reward you with an extra scene with Fairy...whether you allow Ivy to die or whether you buy her from them using the statuette. We have made it so that even if you choose to buy her from them, you still get Emilia, albeit at a later stage.. so by siding with the uggos and doing the morally questionable thing of stiffing the queen and buying yourself a slave, you don't loose anything but gain a scene with Fairy and get Emilia later in the game.

I find most of the devs decisions extreme reasonable. Some scenes, like finding the car must trigger anyway, so It's not a big deal. I'm just calling attention to the false choice scenario now exactly because It's in early development, so the devs can be aware if this issue.

In regards of choices, even billionaire companies like Telltale and Bioware fails to do so. The first Telltale game where choices really mattered was The Wolf Among Us, in the Walking Dead game series every person you saved eventually dies, so It's almost useless to think what to do, since It'll all turn to shit. Desert Stalker fixed this problem. For example, the choice of killing/saving the elf changes the game dramatically. It's really cool that we can lose content by making poor choices.

Neverthelesss, sometimes playing the game feels that is a correct path to play, which is being good (in the sense of never killing anyone) and never siding with the decayed, otherwise you'll lose content. The Fairy Bathroom scene is really cool in that sense of "choices matter", but it's too little compared to the bunker where you meet a tons of characters. Overall the choices plays nice, I'm just expecting a little of exclusive content to some choices, which, by your comment, the devs team already plans to do.

 

[Daquarius]

Just my opinion, but I do hope that you guys have the whole story already plotted out and aren't making it up as you go along putting in content suggested to you. People will always suggest what kinks they want to see in game or how they want the story to go and that can definitely ruin things if you're constantly accommodating their desires. Stick to the story you want to tell, how you want to tell it and the scenes to tell that story. Not everything in a novel or movie is liked by readers or viewers but they will stay to the end if it is a good read or movie and if not, that's life. I think you've done a great job to this point.

Yeah, sometimes listening to people can go wrong, for example the mini story arc of the french king in Vinland Saga, It's almost useless, and It was suggest by one of the authors friends. Sometimes It can go really good, for example the Zabuza arc in Naruto. I think Its more the writer's ability to filter what he's told than anything else.

 

[fortuna95]

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We reached over 500 patrons!

I am one day late to the party, but better late than never! We officially hit the 500 patron mark. Many many thanks to all of you for making this possible!

Almost 9 months have passed since I released the first version and, as I said in the last announcement, I aim to make this a part time engagement. Me being able to do so and reduce my day job to a part time commitment is coming closer to reality.

The game still has a largely untapped potential, so expect more of everything; romances, apocalyptic degeneracy, tragedies, main and side quests, there are enough stories to tell.

For those who are newer supporters: your contribution helps me develop this game in higher quality than I could do without them. Thanks to you I'm able to invest in high quality props, music, sound effects and of course hardware. You will see the results over the upcoming updates. To put it bluntly; screw normal renpy games, if you tell a story, it should be epic.

The pictures are not a scene preview, but custom pictures. I normally don't do renders that are not meant to become part of the game, but for this special occasion I made an exception. I will also upload a NSFW aftermath of this scene in the discord for Tier 3+ supporters in the next days.

I'm excited to see if we can hit another milestone, until then, back to work I go. 8)

 

[pizbia]

FUUUUUCK LOOK AT THOSE BELLY CHAINS ON ZAHRA'S OUTFIT

 

[jlachman]

Very much looking forward to the next update/release of this game. This has quickly become one of my top 5 favorite games, and there is an incredible amount of untapped potential to it. The models/characters have a very unique quality to them and it's nice to see that they aren't just asset clones, but rather created by the dev to truly fit in this world. I appreciate the thoughtfulness of their planning out this post-apocalyptic world and having a new civilization begin from the ashes of one of the oldest human civilizations in existence. It's a nice 'full circle' to things. Aside from the obvious sexual content, the story is remarkable, the characters are engaging and there is an almost perfect amount of humor, suspense, action, etc to the whole. Fantastic work by Zetan!

 

[docupoem]

this game is easily one of the best renpy or even one of the best porn games in general i've ever played, alongside summertime saga

 

[Eibone]

I usually don't play games in early development just because I'll get overly frustrated with how fast the game will go, and then have to wait a long time for updates. This game, however, I don't regret trying at all. It's definitely going to be one of the top games on here

 

[bigmen]

How long are the female protagonist scenes? I dont like stories with multiple protagonist

 

[Kellermann]

How long are the female protagonist scenes? I dont like stories with multiple protagonist

So far, not too long and you have the option to skip it if you want. I believe next episode is Shani's trial in the zone, so that will probably be longer. I don't like multiple protags either, but since this is an important part of Shani's DS training (and because I want to see the zone), I'm going to bite the bullet and play it. My hope is that after Shani completes the test, she will go back to adventuring with the MC. Those are my favourite scenes in the game. I'd much rather them be together than have her doing her own thing in the desert every episode or every other episode. That should be saved for a spin-off game imo.