- Thread starter Caribdis
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cowardleech
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- May 16, 2024
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Branching is good on and off paper and the game would be objectively better if it had better branching (incentive to play non harem paths).
There are only a few other games which are at the story quality of eternum and have branching and this is because implementing branching is hard and exponentially increases the development time each update leading to shorter updates or very long update cycles (you can guess what two games I'm talking about).
Therefore like you said it's a good decision for eternum to fully focus on branching path, it might make the game more of a kinetic novel (which removes the big part of being a VN in the first place and reduces replay value) but let's the author tell more compelling story which the player cannot influence but it will probably be better than any game developed by an indie dev trying to implement branching and a good story.
So branching isn't the problem it's the fact that these AVN devs are small ships and cannot manage to do it well.
I disagree but that may be because of personal preferences and my own playstyle. I cant be bothered to play the same story twice. Maybe it is different for others. I'd rather the dev spend 8 months making 4 hours worth of content for one path that I am going to play as opposed to him spending those 8 months making a bunch of different branches that would result in me spending just 1 hour per update.
I guess it really depends on how you play and how much time you are willing to invest in the game. For me once I have experienced the plot for the first time, it immediately kills all interest I have for replays - there is not as much to look forward to the second time I play. Skipping feels unsatisfying and going through a story I already know just to get a different lewd scene or even different variations/extra lore makes me bored so I dont care much for replay value.
All the major plot points would have already been covered in the first playthrough and the only thing branches offer in other games are extra background lore and new lewd scenes. However the overall story is still the same so this alone is not enough for me to want to replay. Unless the branches offer radically different stories, I am simply not interested. I like reading stories for the first time and the lewd scenes just make everything better. If only like 10% of the scenes are new each time I replay and explore a branch (especially if I have to replay from the beginning), it is simply not worth it to me.
So for me this development approach is ideal. I have pledged on patreon and a big part of why I pledge is because I know updates will be huge and I will get several hours of entertainment with each update. I would not support a game (outside of a one-off steam purchase) where I need to wait for 8 months just to get 30 minutes of content due to all the branches. But like I said - this is only because of my preferences and playstyle. I guess it sucks for those who are willing to explore all branches. But I am not one of those people so I am happy
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In my experience of games with branching, it also makes it almost impossible to produce a game that doesn't have lots of inconsistencies, because there soon become so many possible paths through it that it's all but impossible for the dev to correctly keep track of everything.
Having at last finished the new update, there 's major content with every girl except Penny, which is pretty impressive.
Pokeasy
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- Dec 28, 2020
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gotta be the best VN ever made, hands down.
- Sep 14, 2022
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e6mill
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- Aug 4, 2022
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Depends on how you view multiverse theory - just because there's multiple doesn't necessarily mean that every possibility exists. We could still be the first to play the finished version
sayan11apr
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- Feb 9, 2024
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Hi everyone, I’m new to AVNs and usually prefer to read ones that are fully completed. With that in mind, could anyone estimate how long it might take for Eternum to be finished?
Redd23
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- Mar 11, 2018
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Dorfnutter
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- May 21, 2017
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sayan11apr
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- Feb 9, 2024
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This is the DUMBEST update, in terms of plot. I have never caught such Facepalms on my face...
spsp24
Member
- Jul 12, 2020
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You are clearly very new in the wonderful world of adult VN's....
Most games on this site are in development for years, several were started in, like 2017, and are still not complete.
Keep in mind that these are all indie projects with very small teams (or even single persons) working on them.
Regarding Eternum, there is a reason it is one of the highest rated games here. Just start playing, there is quite a bit of content already. Or better, start playing Once In A Lifetime first, it is made by the same author and completed.
Takkatakka
Engaged Member
- Nov 11, 2022
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I don't know...I realize more and more that I don't try to get all the paths in branching games anymore. Some of the most extreme examples would be BaDIK or ORS and for the former I still haven't played all the branches of the last update and for the latter I settled with one path and didn't do any other.
Maybe if the game is done and you really want to enjoy it to the last with a considerable time investment. But branching also means the player has to go through a lot of the same content multiple times, which either lets it grow old very fast or leads to skipping large parts of the game, which hampers the immersion in my opinion.
Add to that some unskipple BS like the some of the mini-games in BaDIK and it gets really annoying.
So the way Cari does it with Eternum by focusing in one main "canon" branch has some downsides, but I wouldn't fully agree that branching out makes very game better at least not with tons of caveats around it.
On the other hand I have to admit that the choices in Eternum are arguably the weakest part of the game, because a lot of them are either insignificant or the right one is very obvious which also makes them kinda pointless.
TREXrg
Member
- Jun 26, 2022
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Yep that's the problem or balance for VN's to have the right mix of meaingfull choices and atleast immersive choices(flavor)
i find that to games that branch become after many updates a chore and the mono path VN's have the problem of hit and miss much more,
what i found in most VN's as a problem is if there are to many love intrests
i updated the game on android and loaded a save but when i go to the gallery it crashes and if i look at the gallery of individual girls all of them looks locked is there a way to transfer the gallery as well ? i still have all the old files
Late to the party. Suddenly noticed something and wanted to see if there are other references or not.
Please forgive my lack of context in case things are explained clearly later on.
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I don't understand how we have here 0.8.5 here but there's nothing mentioned about this update on patreon or any other platforms, like dev log's ot progress report. 0.8 update became public only few days ago and like, even if you wanna pay for patreon and download it from there or buy it on itch there's no way. The latest version mentioned there is 0.8???
Dorfnutter
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- May 21, 2017
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That is the implication, yes (and would explain why certain assets from various IP (like the Exit Portals being Nia's Chakrams from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Annie's swords back in Ion being the floating swords that androids used in Nier Automata) could be found in Eternum).