Ren'Py Family, Friends and Strangers [v2024.01] [JohnAndRich]

3.90 star(s) 66 Votes

the66

beware, the germans are cumming
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Jan 27, 2017
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The port is good, but the touch gestures leave a bit to be desired.

After hiding the quick menu by accident I actually had to reinstall the entire game to make it come back. I couldn't make the game menu or quick menu gesture work.

The 'game menu' gesture didn't work for me either as mentioned. If the command was changed to 'swipe up' it would be easier.

Thank you regardless. It worked well when I avoided the hide 'hide ui' gesture.
or you read the help tab of the menu once more.
 

L.Lumpy

Member
Jan 3, 2019
174
670
is NTR optional?
and if not then the what is the content of NTR
O. M. G. How many times does this have to get asked and answered. How about you read the OP? "Kinetic Novel," guy. Yes, there is one (and only one) choice of paths in Chapter 9. But, you should not expect anything in this story to be avoidable.

Thanks for the history. Wikipedia has the first commercial camera phone as the Kyocera Visual VP-210 released in Japan May, 1999.

And yes, it would have been a bit before they were widely used; but, then again, the line from the game implies that the NCIS show had been around long enough to become popular with a following.

All-in-all, the devs probably shouldn't have included that line in the game if they wanted to stand strong on that hill. Back it up a few years and we'd be golden. Regardless, no biggie.
In-game references suggest that this story is taking place in the 2005-2006 time frame. (There's a Hurricane Katrina reference in the first chapter.) According to , by then there were only a few camera phone models available in the US, and the cameras in them weren't spectacular. So, I think Rich is on reasonably solid ground here. Maybe not 100% perfect, but close enough for forgiveness. LOL

All that time between updates and still :poop:. No wonder you still barely have support. Nothing seems to be improving :KEK:
First, this update was only a bit over two months after the previous one (late June). So, there wasn't actually all that much time. Get your facts straight. Or are you expecting monthly, hour-long updates? If so, have fun finding them anywhere.

Secondly, how about making some constructive criticism instead of just dumping on it. People wonder why games get abandoned. An author puts in hours and hours of work, only to have someone make a comment like this. (Yes, I know, many of the comments have been positive and constructive, but I'll bet the ones like this really sting.)

Mom should have lawyered up AND told her husband ASAP. Then the lawyer hires a PI to go through old arrests and files to find out if the cops have done this before. Gets mom and son to wire up, then they go to Internal Affairs and the DA. Cops get fired and sued and go to jail for a while.
And then the story would all have ended in, what, chapter 4? LOL

Will ... Mom'mc fuck with carl ?
next time ?
Since when does anybody here know what the future will bring with this or any story/game here? Why bother asking? Wondering where things will go is half the fun, at least for me.

To be fair, it's not just Parker. Carl is also pretty stupid by now. The fact that Becky, Carl and Parker did not concoct something together, blows my mind. They just had to start telling each other some shit.
You know, I actually like the fact that Parker is a bit (or more than a bit) clueless in this. So many games have the MC be some kind of omniscient mastermind that it's a bit refreshing to see an MC make stupid mistakes. Makes him feel more human, to me, at least. Oh, I have the same "c'mon guy, be smarter than that" reaction, but it's mostly because I'm rooting for Parker.

Part of the point, of course, is that the cops' tactics are to try to isolate characters from their support base, making it harder for people to "gang up on them." The younger cop monologues about that at the very beginning - go after the ones with the most to lose. (Implied - the ones that are the least likely to go to others for help.) The fact that Parker and Carl were in the car during the initial stop might have been a mistake - instead of Melissa being completely isolated, the way that it is hinted is "the usual thing," there are others that are aware of her plight. Similarly, Carl is aware of what's been done to Becky. So, I could see this as the beginning of things spiraling out of control for the cops.

All that's just speculation, of course. But if there weren't going to be multiple endings to this story, there probably wouldn't have been the branch point in Chapter 9.

Maybe Rich couldn't make up his mind on which ending to tell, and decided to tell them both! :)
 

ItsEricBoi

Member
Sep 13, 2017
469
966
Someone getting molested in the streets, especially in a western country and by cops no less!! This would be an international story and those cops would never see the light of day again

Very unrealistic and immersion-breaking!
I agree. The cop molestation in public made me less invested.

The story should act in accordance to the unofficial rules of the universe that the game is set in. In the early 2000s US this simply wouldn't happen or would be severely dealt with had it happened. If the game was set in the Middle Ages, this scenario would be more believable.
 
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Qixoni

Active Member
Jul 10, 2017
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Need to wait then, i agree to help the cops, so my save is 10A. THe visual novel is very good, don´t mind to wait a little bit more
 

Alfius

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Sep 30, 2017
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The fact that Parker and Carl were in the car during the initial stop might have been a mistake - instead of Melissa being completely isolated, the way that it is hinted is "the usual thing," there are others that are aware of her plight. Similarly, Carl is aware of what's been done to Becky. So, I could see this as the beginning of things spiraling out of control for the cops.

All that's just speculation, of course. But if there weren't going to be multiple endings to this story, there probably wouldn't have been the branch point in Chapter 9.

Maybe Rich couldn't make up his mind on which ending to tell, and decided to tell them both! :)
I'm of course rooting for the cops to get their just desserts, but I seriously doubt it's that kind of story.
I think the best that we can hope for is

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chipsiup

Active Member
Aug 12, 2016
514
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I agree. The cop molestation in public made me less invested.

The story should act in accordance to the unofficial rules of the universe that the game is set in. In the early 2000s US this simply wouldn't happen or would be severely dealt with had it happened. If the game was set in the Middle Ages, this scenario would be more believable.
I did a quick google search and found plenty of news articles about this sort of thing IRL. From The Guardian:
"Between 2005 and 2015, there were 517 cases of forcible rape by police in the US, according to Philip Stinson, a Bowling Green State University criminal justice professor. An officer is accused of sexual misconduct the second most common complaint against officers, at least once every five days in the US, according to one analysis.

“When people read a story in the paper about an officer charged with a sex crime, they think it’s one officer, it’s horrible, it can’t happen much,” said Stinson. “It’s not until you aggregate it all that you realize this is a phenomenon. It’s far beyond ‘bad apples’.”
 

ItsEricBoi

Member
Sep 13, 2017
469
966
I did a quick google search and found plenty of news articles about this sort of thing IRL. From The Guardian:
"Between 2005 and 2015, there were 517 cases of forcible rape by police in the US, according to Philip Stinson, a Bowling Green State University criminal justice professor. An officer is accused of sexual misconduct the second most common complaint against officers, at least once every five days in the US, according to one analysis.

“When people read a story in the paper about an officer charged with a sex crime, they think it’s one officer, it’s horrible, it can’t happen much,” said Stinson. “It’s not until you aggregate it all that you realize this is a phenomenon. It’s far beyond ‘bad apples’.”
Sadly, I'm not surprised by this.
 

Pi Quantum

Member
Jan 19, 2021
160
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This kinetic novel is turning into a thriller!

Parker is being a stupid bastard on both paths, while everybody thinks they're successfully deceiving each other. Its like watching the slow buildup of a Greek tragedy, where everyone dies horribly in the end.

Rich has done the impossible IMO, by making me feel bad for Emily. I really, really hate that. :)

I wonder what kind of relationship she has with her father, given her activities with Parker in her own driveway? Most teen boys would have seen that as suicidal, but that might be another surprise twist..

On the plus side, Parker is finally showing some consideration for Melissa's potential fate at the hand at the cops, which is a reversal of his previous position. Maybe he can learn, but the Emily-Becky conflict is on again and we're headed for one hell of a meltdown once Carl gets involved. Will he lose his head like Parker, or will Carl out-think him and take a terrible revenge?
 

ARB582

Active Member
Jan 6, 2018
523
326
So i tried the game and well the writing, renders and animations are great, but the story well, lets just say makes me very uncomfortable and pissed off to say the least.
I thought the story would go on to Parker and his family getting revenge on the cops down the line but when choice comes up and i choose the fuck you option over being the snitch and seeing how the story made me really queasy, to the point i did not wanna try the other option.

So in short, it seems it will be like a greek tragedy as someone else mentioned above, which isn't my thing.

There is nothing objectively wrong with the game, but the depressing and hopeless tone is something i don't like and hence i dont think this novel's for me.

I wish the dev good luck bcoz he definitely has talent.
 
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DIRTY FILTHY Animal

Formerly 'DIRTY Filthy RAT'
Jun 11, 2020
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For me last few updates were just ok, because I’m only playing it to see the mom become a slut. But since the last couple updates barely had her do anything it’s kind of dragging. I really could give a rats ass about mc’s ugly girlfriend that won’t put out. Should have the blonde go down on him in front of her
 
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LuciferPrometheus

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Apr 30, 2020
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The MC is smart and strong and should be sufficiently driven by this point as well. So I have a question, is there going to be a point in the story where he decides to take things into his own hands and turns things around? This is not me whinging about ntr. I don't mind it at all. Just asking. At the end of episode 9 I thought he had had enough and was actually going to do something about it.
 

DIRTY FILTHY Animal

Formerly 'DIRTY Filthy RAT'
Jun 11, 2020
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I played already 11b, what to say... How I was turned on from 10B, I was surprisingly turned off by 11B! If you hoping for another Becky content, forgot it, because MC's impulsivity killed all nice flow of story! He acted totally dumb, even he know what happened to him and to his close in previous 10 chapters! Who in the hell care about Emily, not to mention that everything with her feels so rushed. And some good hint for dev: Where is no girlfriend, there is no NTR! If MC no longer care about Becky, what happens to her, and everytime telling that she is his EXgirlfriend, there is no longer NTR content there, no matter what she do!
Really I thought it was NTR when Parker has to watch his mom get groped & fingered at the police station
 
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clowns234

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May 2, 2021
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Really I thought it was NTR when Parker has to watch his mom get groped & fingered at the police station
I thought he seemed more embarrassed than upset. Would he have left so suddenly had his friend not been there? The fact that he didn't bring it up when they all left seemed to imply that he didn't see it as that out of the ordinary. But it's been a while since I watched that scene so I could be wrong.
 

Poser_Voyeur

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Nov 14, 2020
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Really I thought it was NTR when Parker has to watch his mom get groped & fingered at the police station
At the risk of raising an opinion where the dreaded 3 letters are mentioned.....

Does nt NTR in a VN relate to MC or a LI of the MC?

Certainly at the start of the story, Mellisa is hardly an actual or likely LI of Parker?? Now I accept that as the story progresses, and as either Melissa and/or Parker fall deeper into corruption, she could become a LI in the future....
 
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clowns234

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At the risk of raising an opinion where the dreaded 3 letters are mentioned.....

Does nt NTR in a VN relate to MC or a LI of the MC?

Certainly at the start of the story, Mellisa is hardly an actual or likely LI of Parker?? Now I accept that as the story progresses, and as either Melissa and/or Parker fall deeper into corruption, she could become a LI in the future....
For some, it doesn't matter much what the MC would see or think. It's all about how it makes them, the player, feel. A few see all females in game as LIs.
 
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3.90 star(s) 66 Votes