Ren'Py [DevThread] Alexia's Return or Tara's Liberation

[RandyTyr]

My only feedback would be to recommend adding options for a little more player agency. It would be impractical to add assets for most/all potential outcomes in a given scene, but just adding an option that lets the player opt out of scenarios they don't find appealing goes a long way. You've already done just that for a few I noticed. However, it feels that the player is railroaded into certain encounters, some of which don't have an exit, just to increase liberation and unlock follow up scenes with content they want to engage with. But this could also be a lack of understanding on my part about what's happening in the variables.

If the intent is for Tara to have no desire for exclusivity, and it sounds like it is, any agency you give the player would at least allow them the illusion of it. Even within certain fetishes I think it wouldn't hurt to allow for exceptions. Like someone might enjoy bestiality but isn't into specific animals.

I am always on the lookout for where I can safely add some options. At the same time, it is important to keep the "relevant state space" small. This means that when I am designing/writing a new scene, I can only cater for so many things that may or may not have happened previously.

Many games handle this by having rather separate developments for the various LIs. That what, when you write a scene with A it only matters what you did with A before, not what happened with B, C and D. And it is very reasonable to assume that if you eg rejected A before, you don't care about more A-stuff anyone, etc. The downside is that this makes the overall experience a bit disjointed. There may be a cross-over threesome here or there, but they are rare. By making certain partners impossible to avoid, it is much easier to have interactions with multiple characters at once.

It is also easier to make individual "this character yes/no"-choices work if there is a distinction between plot-development scenes and sex scenes (eg Tales From the Unending Void uses that). If the fucking and the plot coincide, that also gets problematic. [I have in a few cases now added shorter clothed "synopsis" alternatives to allow the plot to continue while avoiding a sex scene.]


For the "feeling railroaded"-issue, I hope that there are very few scenes with "strong railroading", ie stuff is happening without the player having caused it. There definitely is a significant amount of "soft railroading", where at some point the plot gets stuck until the player picks the "continue"-option.


Of course there is another way how I could add more choices inside scenes, by offering alternatives. Anal or vaginal? Fuck on the bed or standing against the wall? But there I just find it more interesting to add an entirely new scenes instead, rather than making small variations of the existing scene. Unlike the workflow with Daz (afaik), making something entirely different isn't really much more work than making something rather similar. But maybe there is some unused opportunity here.

 

[RandyTyr]

IMPORTANT: Saves from 0.03 will only work properly if you have completed Chapter 1 (I had to reorganize the code, and that threw Renpy off more than I had expected).

Please let me know of any issues you spot.

 

[xana94]

In case anyone wants to help testing 0.04beta (proof reading and/or testing your own stuff sucks), here it is:

You must be registered to see the links

IMPORTANT: Saves from 0.03 will only work properly if you have completed Chapter 1 (I had to reorganize the code, and that threw Renpy off more than I had expected).

Please let me know of any issues you spot.

Is this feature complete for the final version of the update?

 

[RandyTyr]

Is this feature complete for the final version of the update?

It is.

Spoiler: Changelog

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[xana94]

Liberation of Barbara results in a crash

 

[jackeasy]

In case anyone wants to help testing 0.04beta (proof reading and/or testing your own stuff sucks), here it is:

You must be registered to see the links

IMPORTANT: Saves from 0.03 will only work properly if you have completed Chapter 1 (I had to reorganize the code, and that threw Renpy off more than I had expected).

Please let me know of any issues you spot.

Just a few corrections/recommendations I jotted down.

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

great stuff. the internal views were a nice addition.

 

[xana94]

Just a few corrections/recommendations I jotted down.

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

great stuff. the internal views were a nice addition.

I just had the opposite of the second occur. Pregnant by my father but it spoke of my son

 

[jackeasy]

I just had the opposite of the second occur. Pregnant by my father but it spoke of my son

Sounds like the flags might just be backwards then RandyTyr

 

[Demoness_Kiss]

aside a few minor grammar error, and a few words that i don't know if they're in-lore specific words(like names of people or special objects/artefacts/magic-stuff) i didn't have a problem at all with the beta of the next version

no crashes of any kind, but when you choose to send Miri to seduce Suzi's father, the event becomes a loop made of Tara talking to Suzi about seducing her dad, choosing between who will seduce him, and if you choose Miri, she fucks him but you go back to the event of deciding who'll seduce him.

 

[RandyTyr]

Thanks for all the reports!

 

[xana94]

Thanks for all the reports!

Are you required to try for pregnancy after stopping contraception?

I wanted to breed with the dog and after it told me I had to wait for that, it locked me into trying to breed with my son or father and the only other content being the revolving forms of working on the farm.

When I finally selected the breeding my only options were the same farm work or to try to become pregnant continuously with either or both of them, the other content only being available once again after conception.

 

[RandyTyr]

Are you required to try for pregnancy after stopping contraception?

I wanted to breed with the dog and after it told me I had to wait for that, it locked me into trying to breed with my son or father and the only other content being the revolving forms of working on the farm.

When I finally selected the breeding my only options were the same farm work or to try to become pregnant continuously with either or both of them, the other content only being available once again after conception.

All scenes that involve Tara getting creampied without having code allowing her to get impregnated are blocked while she is fertile. That covers quite a bit, of course. And scenes that involve her getting creampied by someone you haven't tried for pregnancy with are blocked in that phase, too.

Spoiler: Spoiler regarding potential baby-daddys

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[RandyTyr]

I just noticed that if you let your son knock you up and after that you have threesome with the dog the mom says she carries her dads baby thats not correct?

I had mixed up two lines in 0.04beta, this is fixed in 0.04. Her babydaddy is correctly recorded, it is just that one scene with the typo.

 

[xana94]

All scenes that involve Tara getting creampied without having code allowing her to get impregnated are blocked while she is fertile. That covers quite a bit, of course. And scenes that involve her getting creampied by someone you haven't tried for pregnancy with are blocked in that phase, too.

Spoiler: Spoiler regarding potential baby-daddys

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

So I’ll have to have at least one human child to have an animal child later. Will I be able to have other characters carry pups too, at least the daughter?

 

[Demoness_Kiss]

I had mixed up two lines in 0.04beta, this is fixed in 0.04. Her babydaddy is correctly recorded, it is just that one scene with the typo.

is 0.04 the official update or still beta-ish?

 

[RandyTyr]

is 0.04 the official update or still beta-ish?

Unless I've overlooked some big issue, 0.04 is as official as it is going to get.

So I’ll have to have at least one human child to have an animal child later. Will I be able to have other characters carry pups too, at least the daughter?

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[Demoness_Kiss]

Unless I've overlooked some big issue, 0.04 is as official as it is going to get.

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

you may want to update the game-thread then ^^ even the title

 

[RandyTyr]

So, the fourth "liberation arc" for Chapter 2 is done. It's centered around new characters (although several familiar faces have their roles to play, too). It starts with the "Pervert's Challenge" as a random daily event, and once Tara has succeeded there, a new character becomes available for the "work on the liberation of"-menu.

Overall, this is 9k words, about 150 images and 20 something animations (which means that this arc alone has more animations than all of Chapter 1 together).

Now getting all of Chapter 2 done will still take me some time, and I think I'll release 0.05 before then. The problem with releasing just the new arc as its own update is that it would be somewhat grindy to complete (eg, the "Pervert's Challenge" would need to be drawn from the card deck often enough to complete it). On the other hand, the addition of the new event chain takes care of a potential source of Chapter 2 grindiness in 0.04: You need 150 coin to be able to travel to the monastery, and if a player has completed Chapter 1 with no coin saved up, that is annoying to get in Chapter 2. But the new stuff lets Tara easily earn some coin.

Maybe I'll add one or two individual scenes (just to spice up the waiting), and release then.


I've also got a stats screen planned, still need to code that.


Just in case someone here has advice regarding mods for me: I looked into using the amputator framework for a war vet scene, but it seems that the mod isn't compatible with the Anniversary Edition. My understanding is this can be fixed, but I'm not sure I want to go there. I also wanted to have another vore scene, but the only other animation I have (with a mammoth) is broken (timing for mammoth and human is off). There seems to be whole ecosystem around the devourment mod which adds a lot of vore stuff, but I'm not sure if any of that is something I could use (and there's a lot of prerequisites).

 

[RandyTyr]

Could there not be talk added about the mom wanting a son with her son? durig impregnation?

It's probably be weird to be very conscious of morals when writing a game like this, but well, here I am. Wanting a child of a particular gender is problematic, for a variety of reasons (gender shouldn't be that important; how to do you make sure to not resent a child of the "wrong" gender, etc). Tara, as the heroine of our story, thus shouldn't really prefer having her own grandson vs having her own granddaughter. For Daniel, its different: He is still young and thus allowed to be a bit more rash. That's why he often talks about wanting to sire his little brother (as opposed to sibling).

I don't know all the details of how I'll handle it, but you can be assured: The child of Tara and Daniel will either be definitely male, or you'll get to pick the sex/gender.

Also when is the next update im hyped for the preggo content with the mom and son?

Next update, very very soon. I got one more scene to write where I've "shot" the imagery, and will maybe do another one. The update containing the Chapter 2 Epilogue you're waiting for on the other hand, still a bit out.

You personally will probably dislike the start of the new content in 0.05 (whoring around), but you may really enjoy where it gets us.

 

[RandyTyr]

The update brings 230 pictures, 12k words and 40 animations. That means it has about a quarter new stuff compared to what is in 0.04 (more on the animation side). Besides the liberation story arc starting off with the Pervert's Challenge I mentioned above, there are three individual events: Miri visits Barbara, Tara makes a Huntress' dreams come true (single event, but counts as a liberation point), and a stranger spends the night at the Brumiere farm.