VN Ren'Py Eternum [v0.8.0] [Caribdis]

[sageproduct]

madude, it is highly unlikely that reality is dualistic. stick to rational philosophical materialism that you will probably do better. nonetheless, if advice was a good thing... do what will. in regards to the game i don't think the setting is dualistic either considering the theme is cyberpunk in which the universe is usually materialistic with futurism and dystopia. i could be wrong ...some weebs love spiritualism.

Why would cyberpunk necessarily be materialistic? Ghost in the Shell comes to mind for one (and I haven't even seen it). And since you used the word "weeb" - I don't know if The Matrix is considered Cyberpunk, but it takes place in a world that could have a materialistic mechanism for nearly any sort of phenomena, but it goes out of its way specifically to point technological "magic" and spiritual "magic" directly at each other. (Trinity bringing Neo back to life, Neo having this special light sense after losing his vision. Even if you could come up with good materialistic mechanisms for those occurrences, its clear their purpose is spiritual.

If by rough you mean "it doesn't seem to have a solid grasp as to how it wants to present itself as a story," then yes, absolutely. Personally I think the storytelling only started gaining full steam around the time Asmodeus came to the picture (0.5), but before that it was just felt...I dunno, unfocused. Especially given that 0.1 to 0.4 is mainly about a guy who's struggling with his studies and getting into random sexual hijinks with the occasional main plot stuff that he just happens to stumble upon instead of showing the initiative to get the ball rolling* (see: encounter with Moloch at Jasmine's party, stumbling upon the meeting place of the SoA after they fortuitously find that secret entrance)

*And no, don't cite me that moment where MC deciding to open the basement being his way of "taking initiative." The man was bored, and his primary motivation other that sating his curiosity about seeing his father doing shady shit in Mistbury was to combat said boredom. After that he had to be dragged by Judie towards the plot. A far cry from Orion who takes it upon himself to start investigating (or at the very least ask the people he know of who they know could help in said investigation) about Benjie's death in the real after it happened in the game



Not really. IMO the characters were fine (barring Stabby Mike**), but the feel only started to take shape around 0.5. Everything else before that felt like Cari was testing the waters as to what his style ought to be (0.1 was mostly intro but it leaned heavily on the mystery aspect, 0.2 started throwing in the supernatural stuff, 0.3 had 1/2 main plot 1/2 meandering stuff but the blend still feels like it leans heavily on the latter, 0.4 was mainly downtime with some plot sprinkled to it...and then 0.5 was like "okay, let's incorporate everything we've learned from the past 4 updates, trim out the fat, and get this right." And get it right he did).

**I've said it before in this thread and I'll say it again: as a character, I like Mike. From a literary/writing perspective, I kinda detest him for basically becoming unnecessarily important in the overall plot and obtaining the true ending. I suppose I can forgive a minor character from becoming crucial to get the true ending, decisions and consequences are kind of a thing in VNs after all. But him showing up in just about every important event in the plot for one contrived reason after another?

Spoiler: ESPECIALLY when you have a character that has the same schtick AND is a lot more important to the plot BUT got dropped after Mikey came into the picture?

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...Yeah, sorry for the rant. I just...I really feel like Asmodeus got robbed on this one.

That's pretty interesting. I felt like the action began immediately in Once in a Lifetime, even with the fight with Tom. Especially how the internal thought was fearing a fight with Tom, but then confidently and fearlessly destroying Tom even with Tom pulling a knife. Add to that refraining from talking about it with Lauren afterward, and you quickly get a sense of the player character's character beyond just a guy who doesn't study).

For me, stakes were already as high as they could be upon attending the Sons of Astaroth meeting.

checking dad's basement not showing initiative

I dunno, I see more courage being involved than just sheer boredom. After all, Dad had always been mysterious and only intense about that room to where he yelled at innocent-and-perfect-kid Judie enough to make her cry just because she got too close.

Interesting about Mike, I hadn't really thought about it from a plot mechanics standpoint (but I usually don't think about that anyway). No contest to your point, but it didn't impact my enjoyment in any way.

horror in both games

Man, you guys are brave souls, I hate horror, and for me it made no difference AT ALL that Once in a Lifetime's danger was real-world while Eternum's has been in a game. On that note, Once in a Lifetime's dream sequence was one of the scariest parts of all for me, lol. Overall, Eternum has probably been scarier for me.

I was yelling out loud at Caribdis during Red Herring for putting in more scary parts and begging the game not to give me nightmares, lol. I was REALLY tempted to let Luna go to the house and really had to pep myself up to make the brave choice

 

[hitmebaby]

Why would cyberpunk necessarily be materialistic? Ghost in the Shell comes to mind for one (and I haven't even seen it). And since you used the word "weeb" - I don't know if The Matrix is considered Cyberpunk, but it takes place in a world that could have a materialistic mechanism for nearly any sort of phenomena, but it goes out of its way specifically to point technological "magic" and spiritual "magic" directly at each other. (Trinity bringing Neo back to life, Neo having this special light sense after losing his vision. Even if you could come up with good materialistic mechanisms for those occurrences, its clear their purpose is spiritual.

That's pretty interesting. I felt like the action began immediately in Once in a Lifetime, even with the fight with Tom. Especially how the internal thought was fearing a fight with Tom, but then confidently and fearlessly destroying Tom even with Tom pulling a knife. Add to that refraining from talking about it with Lauren afterward, and you quickly get a sense of the player character's character beyond just a guy who doesn't study).

For me, stakes were already as high as they could be upon attending the Sons of Astaroth meeting.



I dunno, I see more courage being involved than just sheer boredom. After all, Dad had always been mysterious and only intense about that room to where he yelled at innocent-and-perfect-kid Judie enough to make her cry just because she got too close.

Interesting about Mike, I hadn't really thought about it from a plot mechanics standpoint (but I usually don't think about that anyway). No contest to your point, but it didn't impact my enjoyment in any way.



Man, you guys are brave souls, I hate horror, and for me it made no difference AT ALL that Once in a Lifetime's danger was real-world while Eternum's has been in a game. On that note, Once in a Lifetime's dream sequence was one of the scariest parts of all for me, lol. Overall, Eternum has probably been scarier for me.

I was yelling out loud at Caribdis during Red Herring for putting in more scary parts and begging the game not to give me nightmares, lol. I was REALLY tempted to let Luna go to the house and really had to pep myself up to make the brave choice

I said "usually materialistic", not necessarily. the cyberpunk genre is heavily science based and realistic so materialism prevails considering the complete lack of evidence to support dualism, gods and spirits, aside from the usual reach some ppl like to do with quantum physics.

As for Ghost in the shell, it is a masterpiece, I highly recommend you watch it(the original) and it is funny that you mention it but I will not discuss it to not spoil it.
The Matrix is cool too but it is, heavily inspired, plagiarism if you ask me, by Neuromancer of William Gibson which is also great and I recommend the read but I must say that only the first The Matrix movie is good and wtv happens in the other movies is rubish.

 

[HogRocket]

A gatling gun that fires pans. Every member has it.

That works for me!!

 

[camube]

It is supposed to come out in about 2 weeks time...or "in a fortnight" as G.R.R. Martin would write.

thanks for the reply!
Time to pay for access and open up some weekend then!

 

[Dorfnutter]

ok AI are something...
View attachment 2762090

"8/10 it missed rendering her glorious freckles" - A Church of Nova member working at IGN, probably

 

[Ellyx]

"8/10 it missed rendering her glorious freckles" - A Church of Nova member working at IGN, probably

I think a member of the Church if Nova would be tougher with the grade and would start insulting the AI for it's unforgivable mistake

Spoiler: unforgivable

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As a fellow member of Annie's gang, i would rate this pic 7.5/10 because it's missing her beautiful blue eyes

 

[Dorfnutter]

I think a member of the Church if Nova would be tougher with the grade and would start insulting the AI for it's unforgivable mistake

Spoiler: unforgivable

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As a fellow member of Annie's gang, i would rate this pic 7.5/10 because it's missing her beautiful blue eyes

It also made her look Asian when IIRC she's supposed to be European/of European descent.

4/10.

 

[Ellyx]

It also made her look Asian when IIRC she's supposed to be European/of European descent.

4/10.

 

[HentaiGamerN00b]

I said "usually materialistic", not necessarily. the cyberpunk genre is heavily science based and realistic so materialism prevails considering the complete lack of evidence to support dualism, gods and spirits, aside from the usual reach some ppl like to do with quantum physics.

As for Ghost in the shell, it is a masterpiece, I highly recommend you watch it(the original) and it is funny that you mention it but I will not discuss it to not spoil it.
The Matrix is cool too but it is, heavily inspired, plagiarism if you ask me, by Neuromancer of William Gibson which is also great and I recommend the read but I must say that only the first The Matrix movie is good and wtv happens in the other movies is rubish.

As far as i can be agree that cyberpunk is heavily materialistic in it's fundamental base, there are shit dualistic in this game, considering the fact that MC is called to help this ppl trapped in "Eternum", what was shown "in-game" as a whole make suspect in the possibility that "the servers" works as dimensions, with mankind having a real experience as they are playing because their information is being transmitted and reconstructed in those universes. Calypso could end at some point opening a portal to the reality of MC, as being him even experienced a connection to Eternum without the technology into it. The problem is, Calypso is a "magical being", her abilities cannot be done in the normie reality of MC to save the ppl trapped in Eternum but it can be performed wherever she is, if by any circumstances the plot or just a path that makes canon Calypso help to save those ppl or even put a step in the normie universe of MC, she would be the living prove of the rape of the entire physics laws. But don't worry, according to the Quantum Mechanics the atom is compose in a 99% of just fucking empty space, in a sense, the fucking universe is very idealism, as we see and touch things having a sense of security that matter is solid, but Quantum Mechanics says "not exactly" and there's a probability for any object to trespass another, lil (to the point to disqualified it in normal conditions) but exist...

PS: as an advice, try to avoid the use of weeb, it's a slang to refer to those outsiders of Japan that are obsessed (to the point of being sick) with that country, the ppl, general culture, goods and services; commonly used as derogatory.

 

[Son of Durin]

"8/10 it missed rendering her glorious freckles" - A Church of Nova member working at IGN, probably

Mmmm, more like 6/10: missing the freckles, something not quite right about nose and chin and eyebrows are too dark. Also, she looks more serious than mischievous, so that kind of takes away from her essence.

 

[Deleted member 5730975]

Man, you guys are brave souls, I hate horror, and for me it made no difference AT ALL that Once in a Lifetime's danger was real-world while Eternum's has been in a game. On that note, Once in a Lifetime's dream sequence was one of the scariest parts of all for me, lol. Overall, Eternum has probably been scarier for me.

I was yelling out loud at Caribdis during Red Herring for putting in more scary parts and begging the game not to give me nightmares, lol. I was REALLY tempted to let Luna go to the house and really had to pep myself up to make the brave choice

I love the horror sequences in OIALT/Eternum. The reason is because outside of JVNs I have not played a western VN where I really liked the horror scenes - maybe its because developers dont feel comfortable enough to add horror in their games because of patreon but OIALT managed to do horror well without adding anything too gross/disgusting (the body horror with characters like Lilith was kinda tame yet that was a great scene). So when the horror is good in a game, it sticks out and becomes immediately memorable to me.

I am absolutely hoping for more horror scenes in Eternum because there is not a lot like it. Even high rated dark games on this website that focuses on eldritch abominations like Superhuman are not scary. Mist does the suspenseful mysterious atmosphere well and I love it for that but it is not scary. JVNs are your only option for quality horror VNs.

 

[Dorfnutter]

That's pretty interesting. I felt like the action began immediately in Once in a Lifetime, even with the fight with Tom. Especially how the internal thought was fearing a fight with Tom, but then confidently and fearlessly destroying Tom even with Tom pulling a knife. Add to that refraining from talking about it with Lauren afterward, and you quickly get a sense of the player character's character beyond just a guy who doesn't study).

For me, stakes were already as high as they could be upon attending the Sons of Astaroth meeting.

There was action in 0.1, yes (if you can call it that, because to me all that adrenaline pumping was spoiled by the trial-and-error choice system for the combat. Can't believe switching to QTEs in Eternum was actually better, considering how much I dislike them (or more specifically, how much I dislike devs using them after a tough fight where a cutscene in between fights should serve as breathing room for your hands before you subject it to more torture. Thankfully that's not the case in this VN)). But the thing is that other than establishing the animosity between Tom and OIAL's MC, it never contributes anything to the main plot.

Which is kind of my point with OIAL's early hours/chapters - it meanders through stuff that would be first in the editorial chopping block had Cari submitted this to a publisher or a competent editor. Compare that to the first chapter of Eternum, where no moment felt wasteful and the pacing allowed you to quickly get to the point of the plot (i.e meeting most of the girls, achieving a way on how to play Eternum, being introduced to the contest and some of the rules of the world, meeting principal characters like the Founder and Thanatos, etc.) while foreshadowing plenty of stuff that are likely to be addressed in the future (i.e. the first dream in Kredon, the telephone call about Calypso).

For me, stakes were already as high as they could be upon attending the Sons of Astaroth meeting.

Yeah, but it took until 0.3 for us to get to that point. And then we meandered AGAIN in 0.4 up until Moloch showed up and is revealed to be Jasmine's dad and shook OIAL's MC so much that he remembered the plot (kidding about that last thing but...you get the point). Meanwhile, in this VN we managed to jump to Eternum as early as 0.1, witnessed first hand what happens when you fuck around with Eternum's rules, managed to get ourselves in our first gem hunt (with introduced us to the storm that is approachingImean Thanatos), AND realized the real-world consequences of fucking around with said rules.

I dunno, I see more courage being involved than just sheer boredom. After all, Dad had always been mysterious and only intense about that room to where he yelled at innocent-and-perfect-kid Judie enough to make her cry just because she got too close.

Except the man wasn't around to yell or go Omniman on him if he so much as entered the room (as opposed to poor Judie, who tried to do so while the dad was at home). Can't really call that courageous or anything. Had the dad been there though and he still went with it, then maybe you could call it that.

 

[Takkatakka]

OiaL ist pretty good, but it also has a lot of problems. Starting with some characters and one LI especially being pretty much not integrated into the actual story AT ALL. Also the whole ending feels rushed. I might be imagining things but it really feels like Caribdis couldn't wait to start over with a new game that leaves all the "old baggage" of the beginning of OiaL behind, right down to actually mentioning it in OiaL.

In Eternum everything is much better integrated. All the LIs have their "place" in the main story. The graphics are on a very high level right away. Everything feels better thought through and planned so far...sure, in the end it comes down to personal taste so some people might very well prefer OiaL, but for myself it isn't even a contest. OiaL is good and for a first game even impressive, but it also has very large flaws. Eternum is...for what it wants to be...almost flawless so far.

 

[Jeycii_]

Yep yep, thats right. But it still feels great to play OIAL, even tho I already finished it like a month ago, i was able to play it again.. well tbh i skipped quite a bit, but still amazing. I like the chars, even tho some didnt get enough spotlight in the right places haha.

But as much as I love Eternums world right now... i will forever miss Carla.. i just love her every thing and its just too bad she "only" got 2 sex scenes. Really wished to have had one in the master bedroom where she tells the MC he was so much better than her husband/his father...
or a hot kitchen scene
or a steaming bathroom scene
or a sexy couch scene
or a lewd scene in school for student/parent day
or a good ol fancy dinner - love hotel scene

*kink alarm triggered*

.. oh boi the possibilities for Carla are just..

 

[RandoCard3]

I'm tempted to start a new game to avoid the side girls, so Nancy can be MCs first. Are we likely to be locked out of content for not boning the two current side girls? Am I going to be losing much by focusing on the Main Girls?

 

[Dorfnutter]

...some weebs love spiritualism.

And since you used the word "weeb"

PS: as an advice, try to avoid the use of weeb, it's a slang to refer to those outsiders of Japan that are obsessed (to the point of being sick) with that country, the ppl, general culture, goods and services; commonly used as derogatory.

My interpretation is that he used that term due to how prominent "spiritualist" elements are in recent LN, manga, and anime-related media (i.e. the entire "isekai" genre, XC3's main and final DLC story focusing on the idea of "eternal recurrence") and how "weebs" seem to lap that up (basically accusing me of being one since I'm attributing said elements to this VN when he thinks that this is a cyberpunk story). Personally I find this funny because even if you hadn't played the dev's past game (which I think pretty much spoils one to the idea that the setting has "spiritualist"/fantasy/occult elements to it), there's a lot of stuff that has happened in the real world segments of the story so far that veers into "spiritualist"/fantasy/occult territory...

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[hitmebaby]

As far as i can be agree that cyberpunk is heavily materialistic in it's fundamental base, there are shit dualistic in this game, considering the fact that MC is called to help this ppl trapped in "Eternum", what was shown "in-game" as a whole make suspect in the possibility that "the servers" works as dimensions, with mankind having a real experience as they are playing because their information is being transmitted and reconstructed in those universes. Calypso could end at some point opening a portal to the reality of MC, as being him even experienced a connection to Eternum without the technology into it. The problem is, Calypso is a "magical being", her abilities cannot be done in the normie reality of MC to save the ppl trapped in Eternum but it can be performed wherever she is, if by any circumstances the plot or just a path that makes canon Calypso help to save those ppl or even put a step in the normie universe of MC, she would be the living prove of the rape of the entire physics laws. But don't worry, according to the Quantum Mechanics the atom is compose in a 99% of just fucking empty space, in a sense, the fucking universe is very idealism, as we see and touch things having a sense of security that matter is solid, but Quantum Mechanics says "not exactly" and there's a probability for any object to trespass another, lil (to the point to disqualified it in normal conditions) but exist...

PS: as an advice, try to avoid the use of weeb, it's a slang to refer to those outsiders of Japan that are obsessed (to the point of being sick) with that country, the ppl, general culture, goods and services; commonly used as derogatory.

Yes, this game may very well be dualistic.
No, thank you. I don't take advice from weebs, specially not from the ones that have no sense of humor and preach about things they don't know. Subatomic space is not necessarily empty, the electrons and neutrinos are everywhere and even "vacuum" is perpassed by fields but more importantly none of this nor relativity deduces dualism in any way.

 

[FanFFFFF]

nice game

 

[hitmebaby]

My interpretation is that he used that term due to how prominent "spiritualist" elements are in recent LN, manga, and anime-related media (i.e. the entire "isekai" genre, XC3's main and final DLC story focusing on the idea of "eternal recurrence") and how "weebs" seem to lap that up (basically accusing me of being one since I'm attributing said elements to this VN when he thinks that this is a cyberpunk story). Personally I find this funny because even if you hadn't played the dev's past game (which I think pretty much spoils one to the idea that the setting has "spiritualist"/fantasy/occult elements to it), there's a lot of stuff that has happened in the real world segments of the story so far that veers into "spiritualist"/fantasy/occult territory...

(WARNING: MASSIVE IMAGE DUMP AHEAD)

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Every one of these phenomena could possibly be explained with mental illness and technology.

 

[Cherubin25]

I'm tempted to start a new game to avoid the side girls, so Nancy can be MCs first. Are we likely to be locked out of content for not boning the two current side girls? Am I going to be losing much by focusing on the Main Girls?

Not sure about the second woman, but the first one is not really lost content. You just skip the part.

But overall, Nancy will not be MCs first anyway. From what I remember it was never stated that MC is a virgin.