Ren'Py Divine Dawn [v0.30] [Cryswar]

[Quintilus]

she missed her chance to be your first.

That a fucking genius plan Walter Samantha, if I understood it correctly. Went on succubi hunt and still hoping to be the first woman of you bro.

 

[Quintilus]

It's a speech-to-text program I used to try to save my hands from exploding.

You neighbors іs still greets with you when meet you, right?

 

[Ritsujin]

Sam has a new sprite, courtesy of Coubalt, going from 8 to ~35 expressions! It can also get naked, which features in her first lewd scene. She also got a titfuck CG with 9ish variations, also provided by Coubalt!

Let's goooooooooooo, Sam best girl.
And I totally didn't just remember this game after finding it in my 239587223957 TB folder after forever.

Man.
Forgot the name, my bad.
Good to know it's been updated, though.
Keep up the good work.

 

[Crestrial]

Coming back to this.

So I liked the writing, in narrative and skill. The biggest killer to me for text-reliant games is bad grammar, spelling, and typos. I have to ask though since I assume you're the only writer, do you have any plans for writer's block? Also, is this being developed via a roadmap or are you planning to just add whatever your patron community asks for?

 

[EvilGenius97]

Not sure if this is intentional or not, but the Earth Blade ability for an Earth focused Magic Swordsman has no mastery options.
Also, the Arcane Efficiency trait does not work. In the spell selection menu in combat it says that a given spell's mana cost is reduced, but when you use the spell it still takes the original mana cost that the spell requires. I.e. Stone Shard says it only costs 0.5 mana with the perk, but casting it still takes 1 full point of mana.

 

[Cryswar]

June 12th Weekly Update
If last week was mechanics week, this one was commissions week. Didn't get as much writing done as I'd hoped, but made phenomenal progress on various other things.

In particular, we have an *amazing* Celica lewd CG in progress from the talented Nor, designs/lineart for both the upcoming dommy Vila mommy in the Deepwoods as well as the upcoming ara ara big sis in Badon thanks to Coubalt, Metatron lewd CG from Sunset is moving along and (I think) mostly done, Maya's character art from Jiffic is nearly done and incredibly expressive, both of Sam's upcoming music themes from Ubercrow aren't too far off, and I talked to a few other artists for future stuff.

Some of this stuff is happening so fast I can't even keep up with previews LOL, I just showed off the vila's first sketch and she's already upgraded to her goddess-tier ingame pose. Now that's what I call first world problems.

I got most of the planning done for some important near-future plot scenes, so I'm gonna get rolling on some of that this week. Hopefully doing that lets me avoid my usual issue of putting the plot stuff off until the end of the update and getting stuck on it...

Patreon has previews of Maya expression/art, the vila and Alicia lineart, and the Deepwoods custom BG, with a lot more to come!

 

[Cryswar]

Let's goooooooooooo, Sam best girl.
And I totally didn't just remember this game after finding it in my 239587223957 TB folder after forever.

Man.
Forgot the name, my bad.
Good to know it's been updated, though.
Keep up the good work.

Sam is indeed excellent, and I've been there LOL, my megasync folder is the fucking twilight zone.

Coming back to this.

So I liked the writing, in narrative and skill. The biggest killer to me for text-reliant games is bad grammar, spelling, and typos. I have to ask though since I assume you're the only writer, do you have any plans for writer's block? Also, is this being developed via a roadmap or are you planning to just add whatever your patron community asks for?

Plans for writers block: curl up in the fetal position, cry, and then work on another aspect of the game for a few days. So far it's been working pretty well.

The story is entirely based on a roadmap that I, uh, never actually posted anywhere since I kinda wanted aspects of the plot to be a surprise. Patrons get to vote on the order of some things (ex. do I focus on Celica or Metatron romance first, or do you want greatswords or dual daggers first), and I'm always open to suggestions from here/patrons/discord/etc, but the story as a whole is following a roughly structured plan.

Character development (which is the other major focus) follows a mix of a rough plan and me just kinda seeing how it goes, ex. originally I didn't think Ashley and Metatron would get along but the more I write them the more I realize they're... never actually going to get along, but Metatron will learn to tolerate her.

Not sure if this is intentional or not, but the Earth Blade ability for an Earth focused Magic Swordsman has no mastery options.
Also, the Arcane Efficiency trait does not work. In the spell selection menu in combat it says that a given spell's mana cost is reduced, but when you use the spell it still takes the original mana cost that the spell requires. I.e. Stone Shard says it only costs 0.5 mana with the perk, but casting it still takes 1 full point of mana.

None of the Blades have mastery options currently. They're already Mastery-level strong at base, which I think may have been a bad idea in retrospect, but idk.

I'll double-check Arcane Efficiency.

 

[ankhtar]

as well as the upcoming ara ara big sis in Badon thanks to Coubalt

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I read the rest of the post, I swear. It's just that this particular statement seems to jump out to me for some reason. A very cultured and wholesome reason.

 

[Forgotted]

Was going to look at the pics/previews but haven't been able to yet. Not a big deal but
thought I'd ask, anyone having troubles logging in to discord? I tried but it
says invite invalid, then wants me to verify my acct by giving them my phone number...
been happening for a few days now.

Might be because of my vpn?

Just curious abt Maya... lol

Cheers

 

[Cryswar]

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I read the rest of the post, I swear. It's just that this particular statement seems to jump out to me for some reason. A very cultured and wholesome reason.

No no, he's on to something! She's absolutely gorgeous, can't wait to have final art to put ingame as I write her.

Was going to look at the pics/previews but haven't been able to yet. Not a big deal but
thought I'd ask, anyone having troubles logging in to discord? I tried but it
says invite invalid, then wants me to verify my acct by giving them my phone number...
been happening for a few days now.

Might be because of my vpn?

Just curious abt Maya... lol

Cheers

Sorry to hear you're having those issues. I tried the invite and it still works for me, so I don't think it's completely broken. May be a VPN issue? I don't have a lot of experience with those, sorry. Does it do the same for the web and mobile/desktop versions of Discord?

And kinda ironically, right about the time I posted this I got the finished version of Maya LOL. I dunno if I care enough to go back and edit it though.

 

[fail123]

Lord, hear my prayer and grant my desire!

That said, Sam is approximately 99% less likely to commit constant warcrimes.


CGs are expensive, I'm working on a pretty limited budget, and patrons voted for character art first. I am starting to add them slowly though! Sam got one in 0.20, next update Metatron should as well.

I wouldn't expect any animations, those are... not cheap.


There's one footjob from Ashley currently.

Dude, keep up what you are doing, I honestly really enjoyed it either way haha

 

[LordXamon]

What the fuck, why this game has such a good choice of music?

 

[Cryswar]

Dude, keep up what you are doing, I honestly really enjoyed it either way haha

Glad to hear! I'll do my best.

What the fuck, why this game has such a good choice of music?

The power of crippling autism, many hours spent looking for the perfect themes, and (more recently) me starting to commission music specifically for the game. About half the character themes were created for them; Celica's may well be my favorite.

It honestly makes me really happy to know people appreciate the music, I've always felt it was an underrated part of a game and put a lot of work into trying to make sure this wasn't just another game using generic filler music.

 

[Deleted member 2860033]

I have but one question, or request if you will, add more CGs/ will there be animations?

 

[Cryswar]

I have but one question, or request if you will, add more CGs/ will there be animations?

The next update will actually have two new high-quality CGs, for Metatron and Celica!

Animations... honestly, getting high-quality 2d animations is very expensive. It may happen in the future if I start making bank, but I can't promise anything.

 

[damndatboi]

Honestly, I wasn't expecting a porn game in this era to have a good actual classic fantasy about what it means to be a hero. The dialogue and writing are generally pretty good though I'm not sure how well the "zoomer" speak has and will continue to age.

I'd suggest adding some color to some of the text especially for combat clarity things like Critical Hit! or Weak Spot! or Glancing Blow! maybe even changing colors for damage types or when a target Gains 10 health, or Loses 10 health, Additionally there should be way more skill checks in combat, we do see this once with the Hob Shaman fight though it doesn't tell us exactly what it does or even what stat it's based on, some can be assumed like Dodge it! (Agility) but the actual stat that it uses to modify your roll should be included with the choice.

Every character should even have their own border/UI style when assisting you in combat, should be something that represents the character like a flaming background with a sword for Sam, or a darker purple smoke with some little hearts for Ashley.

Finally, the game could use a minor tutorial or if you are against tutorials maybe some more mouse over assistance text for some things.

 

[Cryswar]

Honestly, I wasn't expecting a porn game in this era to have a good actual classic fantasy about what it means to be a hero. The dialogue and writing are generally pretty good though I'm not sure how well the "zoomer" speak has and will continue to age.

I'd suggest adding some color to some of the text especially for combat clarity things like Critical Hit! or Weak Spot! or Glancing Blow! maybe even changing colors for damage types or when a target Gains 10 health, or Loses 10 health, Additionally there should be way more skill checks in combat, we do see this once with the Hob Shaman fight though it doesn't tell us exactly what it does or even what stat it's based on, some can be assumed like Dodge it! (Agility) but the actual stat that it uses to modify your roll should be included with the choice.

Every character should even have their own border/UI style when assisting you in combat, should be something that represents the character like a flaming background with a sword for Sam, or a darker purple smoke with some little hearts for Ashley.

Finally, the game could use a minor tutorial or if you are against tutorials maybe some more mouse over assistance text for some things.

I agree about the zoomer stuff. The start of the game is by far its weakest spot. At some point in the next few months, I think I'll finally have both the art and the plan to revamp it to better represent the quality of later content.

That's a great idea on text color; I started doing it last update with the updated ability tooltip/damage guessing, can definitely improve on it.

A lot of the checks throughout the game are unfortunately hidden and could be made much more visible. I've got some ideas to improve it and will work on that.

The border/UI stuff... I think I can do some of it. That's a cool idea. I was gonna try to get them little portraits/headshots when I updated the UI. Not sure exactly how the end result will go, heavily depends on how feasible it is in renpy.

More tutorial is good. 0.21 will improve on some stuff (ex. stats, abilities, traits in progress menu will offer much more info and have some tutorial text), but what else would you like to see improved? I have no formal training in any of this lol, I rely on gut feelings as much as feedback to improve stuff.

 

[Quintilus]

The dialogue and writing are generally pretty good though I'm not sure how well the "zoomer" speak has and will continue to age.

He uses speach to text program (and microphone) instead of writing it by fiddly fiddly fingers. And spoken language differs from written. Thats also adds to it.

 

[damndatboi]

The border/UI stuff... I think I can do some of it. That's a cool idea. I was gonna try to get them little portraits/headshots when I updated the UI. Not sure exactly how the end result will go, heavily depends on how feasible it is in renpy.

More tutorial is good. 0.21 will improve on some stuff (ex. stats, abilities, traits in progress menu will offer much more info and have some tutorial text), but what else would you like to see improved? I have no formal training in any of this lol, I rely on gut feelings as much as feedback to improve stuff.

I personally think the UI and combat itself are the weakest parts of the game the UI (sorry) is bland and uninspired and tends to contrast with the background and environment. The UI should be slightly transparent to allow us to see as much as possible You see how this rough opaque black is in the way? The information itself is fine I'd say make the health/mana/lust bars width and length smaller and remove the black background entirely or make it mostly transparent and resting the bars directly on the dialogue UI or just attempt to take up as little space as possible.

Additionally, you should put some tiny icons next to every skill which tells you its school/effect like a little flame after a fire skill or a little longsword after a longsword specific skill.


Now fixing the combat seems much tougher but the game simply put lacks mechanics, you can do this however you like but the game needs some flavor.

First off, we lack the ability to craft items or gather supplies and cannot use items in battle yet other than the limited potion granted to us by Aspasia which technically counts as a skill.

Currency does exist yet, but this would open lots of opportunities for other items such as buyable or craft-able items and accessories like rings or bracelets.

No combat flavor or gimmicks, the primary issue I currently have with combat is the lack of tactics and I guess tension or weight?

Do certain weapons or magic types counter each other? What are the effects of these counters? In something like Fire Emblem it's a simple extra hit chance and a minor boost to damage. Maybe they don't directly "counter" each other but do have truly distinct passive and active abilities.

Are enemies weak to certain types of magic? What even are they effects of these weaknesses? In SMT/Persona in addition to dealing more damage, striking a weakness will stun the target and allow you an additional attack. Maybe we have to strike the weakness multiple times to have an effect?

Why don't we have a defend/guard button?

Why can't we see the turn order or even what exactly determines it? I'm aware it's something to do with the initiative stat but is it partially random do we roll a d20? Is it just based on the flat number?

We need accessories! Rings Bracelets! Necklaces!

Bow and Arrows don't exist!? Or at least we don't have access to them.

Armor Specific skills? Maybe heavy armor skill just flat reduces some damage? Unarmored skill gives more glancing hit or glancing mit chance?

Cross School skills? Things like fire+water = steam.

We should be able to tell those left at camp things to do while MC and his current Partner are adventuring, maybe we tell them to fish or forage or study nearby enemies/wildlife.

 

[Cryswar]

I personally think the UI and combat itself are the weakest parts of the game the UI (sorry) is bland and uninspired and tends to contrast with the background and environment. The UI should be slightly transparent to allow us to see as much as possible View attachment 1877519 You see how this rough opaque black is in the way? The information itself is fine I'd say make the health/mana/lust bars width and length smaller and remove the black background entirely or make it mostly transparent and resting the bars directly on the dialogue UI or just attempt to take up as little space as possible.

Additionally, you should put some tiny icons next to every skill which tells you its school/effect like a little flame after a fire skill or a little longsword after a longsword specific skill.
View attachment 1877514 View attachment 1877516

Now fixing the combat seems much tougher but the game simply put lacks mechanics, you can do this however you like but the game needs some flavor.

First off, we lack the ability to craft items or gather supplies and cannot use items in battle yet other than the limited potion granted to us by Aspasia which technically counts as a skill.

Currency does exist yet, but this would open lots of opportunities for other items such as buyable or craft-able items and accessories like rings or bracelets.

No combat flavor or gimmicks, the primary issue I currently have with combat is the lack of tactics and I guess tension or weight?

Do certain weapons or magic types counter each other? What are the effects of these counters? In something like Fire Emblem it's a simple extra hit chance and a minor boost to damage. Maybe they don't directly "counter" each other but do have truly distinct passive and active abilities.

Are enemies weak to certain types of magic? What even are they effects of these weaknesses? In SMT/Persona in addition to dealing more damage, striking a weakness will stun the target and allow you an additional attack. Maybe we have to strike the weakness multiple times to have an effect?

Why don't we have a defend/guard button?

Why can't we see the turn order or even what exactly determines it? I'm aware it's something to do with the initiative stat but is it partially random do we roll a d20? Is it just based on the flat number?

We need accessories! Rings Bracelets! Necklaces!

Bow and Arrows don't exist!? Or at least we don't have access to them.

Armor Specific skills? Maybe heavy armor skill just flat reduces some damage? Unarmored skill gives more glancing hit or glancing mit chance?

Cross School skills? Things like fire+water = steam.

We should be able to tell those left at camp things to do while MC and his current Partner are adventuring, maybe we tell them to fish or forage or study nearby enemies/wildlife.

Ok. Some of that stuff is already in the plans (different UI images, etc). Icons are already making a limited appearance in the next update, not sure how far it'll extend. Armor already has stats, which will be expanded on.

A fair number of them are planned; currency is an eventual thing, turn order (and eventually, probably tick order), bows, hybrid elements have already been mentioned ingame but are more advanced magic, etc.

We'll see on the combat/equipment changes - some of those are fairly significant, fundamental alterations. More isn't always better, and I don't want to get trapped in a loop of making the game more complex for the sake of complexity. Rings/Bracelets in particular are almost certainly not happening, though there will be a Rune system down the road that has some similarities. I'll see what I can do on the rest.