VN Ren'Py Abandoned Estate : Dominate [v0.36.1] [Henissart]

[Incognito Guy]

Anyone have the update?

Yes, he gave it to me in secret. He told me not to give it to anyone else though because he likes to see other people painfully wait for no reason. And yes, even those that pay the Patreon fee. Truly an evil, evil man.

 

[WhiteFireDaemon]

Yes, he gave to me in secret. He told me not to give it to anyone else though because he likes to see other people painfully wait for no reason. And yes, even those that pay the Patreon fee. Truly an evil, evil man.

Is it weird for me to think that if any developer could consider doing something like that, that it would indeed be Henissart? Seems like the kind of twisted act that someone that could make this kind of a game might enjoy...

 

[Jon_Sleeper]

Just played it for the first time. Absolutely fantastic. Reminds of starless a lot. But has the dev mentioned anywhere about his planned fetishes? Is there gonna be some hardcore content which will go way beyond the lines or something?

 

[taler]

As a guy whose only interest in femdom is turning the tables and punishing an uppity woman I hope you'll include at least 1 route where that happens. Hit both fetishes, why not?

I really liked Starless but couldn't finish it because... well all the reasons why that guy said was good about Starless made it boring for me.

 

[Henissart]

Just played it for the first time. Absolutely fantastic. Reminds of starless a lot. But has the dev mentioned anywhere about his planned fetishes? Is there gonna be some hardcore content which will go way beyond the lines or something?

I published a very long post on exactly this right after the initial release. It's still accurate.

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'Hardcore [...] way beyond the lines' is hard to say. I obviously have to stay within Patreon bounds and I don't intend the game to go super dark. Then again, all scenes will be twisted and fucked up one way or another. Depends a bit on your own tastes too.

As a guy whose only interest in femdom is turning the tables and punishing an uppity woman I hope you'll include at least 1 route where that happens. Hit both fetishes, why not?

I really liked Starless but couldn't finish it because... well all the reasons why that guy said was good about Starless made it boring for me.

The main reason you usually don't see people hitting both fetishes is that the audience for one often actively dislikes the other. So combining them into one story branch is really hard, and if you split enough to make everyone happy you start developing 2 games at once.
That said, my personal goal is to make a game that can be played by both factions. The only thing I ask of players is to not run away screaming at the first instance of something not perfectly adhering to genre conventions.

 

[taler]

For me the femdom part makes the eventual reversal all the better, so I definitely won't go screaming. I fully enjoyed the first couple of hours in Starless, just eventually couldn't bring myself to continue as my interest waned.

Maybe include an option at the start of the story (or the options m enu) to differentiate between the target markets rather than try to smoothly integrate various routes into the storyline. From what I'm hearing the other guy wants to try to reverse it on domme but have her push back and crush you even harder rather than have the reversal work. Making the option at the start would open that possibility and allow him to enjoy himself. He wants to struggle against the woman and have it all fail, while I want the struggle to succeed.

These are my 2 cents.

 

[taler]

Also, mac please?

 

[GladstoneGander]

I'd like to see a "Back" button to go back a few lines of dialogue, like you see in a lot of Ren'Py games. I really miss that in this game.

 

[Jon_Sleeper]

I'd like to see a "Back" button to go back a few lines of dialogue, like you see in a lot of Ren'Py games. I really miss that in this game.

Just use scroll mouse button to go back.

 

[GladstoneGander]

Just use scroll mouse button to go back.

Ah right, stupid of me.
Thank you, I've always just clicked back before, I guess I'm a clicker. I'd still like to see a "Back" button though.

Edit: A "Skip" button would be nice aswell.

 

[Henissart]

For me the femdom part makes the eventual reversal all the better, so I definitely won't go screaming. I fully enjoyed the first couple of hours in Starless, just eventually couldn't bring myself to continue as my interest waned.

Maybe include an option at the start of the story (or the options m enu) to differentiate between the target markets rather than try to smoothly integrate various routes into the storyline. From what I'm hearing the other guy wants to try to reverse it on domme but have her push back and crush you even harder rather than have the reversal work. Making the option at the start would open that possibility and allow him to enjoy himself. He wants to struggle against the woman and have it all fail, while I want the struggle to succeed.

These are my 2 cents.

Also, mac please?

An option at the start that splits the game in 2 simply means making 2 games. That's not possible for 1 person, at least not with the size and quality I want to make. Besides, I'm personally not even very interested in those pure genres. One of the reasons I'm making Estate : Dominate is that I think there's a dearth of games that explore the conflicted feelings people have about their sexual desires. So to me, the uneasy combination of elements in the game is a feature, not a bug.
The Mac version has always been available. Just seems like it hasn't been pirated so far.

Ah right, stupid of me.
Thank you, I've always just clicked back before, I guess I'm a clicker. I'd still like to see a "Back" button though.

Edit: A "Skip" button would be nice aswell.

Holding down the 'ctrl' key skips. The 'Help' screen in the main menu has a list of all keyboard shortcuts. I prefer to have minimal UI elements on screen, so I took those buttons out.
The better solution would be to have them only appear when you hover over them of course. I'll implement that when I rework the UI, which is something I want to do but didn't have the time for so far.

 

[Wookie]

Edit: A "Skip" button would be nice aswell.

As mentioned above you can use the CTRL key, you can also use the TAB key

 

[Penfold Mole]

Ah right, stupid of me.
Thank you, I've always just clicked back before, I guess I'm a clicker. I'd still like to see a "Back" button though.

Edit: A "Skip" button would be nice aswell.

Just try my transparency patch (in my sig). It adds a slightly modified quick menu to the game that can be activated / deactivated by Alt+m key combination. It has all the "standard" buttons in a somewhat compacted and rearranged configuration.

 

[GladstoneGander]

Just try my transparency patch (in my sig). It adds a slightly modified quick menu to the game that can be activated / deactivated by Alt+m key combination. It has all the "standard" buttons in a somewhat compacted and rearranged configuration.

Thank you. I've tried it and it looks nice. Only there was no quick menu, also not when pressing Alt+m.

I like that idea Henissart, the quick menu that appears when you hover over it. The CTRL for fast forward works, but that would mean I have to use 2 hands or otherwise make that "big move" of going from the mouse towards the keyboard.

 

[Nadiel]

You are right. I have written an explanation for how the game and the guide work, and made a couple of changes to try and make it a bit more clear.

Thank you very much for this walkthrough which helps me a lot.
Good game !

 

[Penfold Mole]

Thank you. I've tried it and it looks nice. Only there was no quick menu, also not when pressing Alt+m.

Right, thanks for telling me! I didn't actually notice that the game has a custom say screen without quick menu. It's not hidden or switched off, it's just not there.
So I released a tiny fix that adds quick menu to Estate : Dominate. Please, download v2.5.9.1 and try again.

 

[GladstoneGander]

Right, thanks for telling me! I didn't actually notice that the game has a custom say screen without quick menu. It's not hidden or switched off, it's just not there.
So I released a tiny fix that adds quick menu to Estate : Dominate. Please, download v2.5.9.1 and try again.

Thank you very much. I'll just be honest now. It works fine, the text looks much better without the white background, but the look of the buttons is not that great. There seem to be a lot of buttons, there quite big and it's on both sides instead of in the middle.
But thank you none the less for the effort.

I do have some advice for Henissart if you're gonna implement a quick menu. I would look at how Philly Games does it with The City of Broken Dreamers. The buttons are very small and hardly distracting from the artwork.

 

[NeroZee]

I dunno what some people are saying but the game is filled with "sex scenes" you are just looking for them in all the wrong places.

 

[taler]

wtf is wrong with that guy NanakoAC who complained about excessive monologuing in the reviews. That's literally how the writing is good.

 

[Penfold Mole]

There seem to be a lot of buttons, there quite big and it's on both sides instead of in the middle.
But thank you none the less for the effort.

You're very welcome, but I'm just trying to figure out what is wrong there, so please, bear with me.
First of all, I don't know how it looks on your screen, but it looks like this on mine:



Buttons are big?
How come these buttons are big? Compared to what? I actually enlarged them to 24 because the default size of 16 was too small for the game screen height of 1440px. Now the size is 1/60-th of the screen height.

A lot of buttons?
Yes, a few more than default, but they're taking less space because back, skip and auto buttons are compacted to a few characters max and Q.Save and Q.Load are now just Q.S and Q.L. There are only 2 buttons added to the default configuration: Load and hide UI (on the far right).

Split instead of the middle?
Yes, I tried to make the UI less intrusive than Ren'Py's default and as transparent as possible to cover less of the background image, without losing much of its visibility or functionality. The idea behind splitting buttons to game play related buttons on the right (back, skip, auto, hide UI) and all other buttons on the left (History, Save, Load, Q.S, Q.L, Prefs) is to cover less of the central area of the background image where usually the focus of most scenes is located and move buttons to the corners of the screen.

If this is not your cup of tea and you want your buttons smack in the middle of the image, then sorry. Right now this is what you get from me. It may become more flexible in the future though.