Ren'Py Family, Friends and Strangers [v2024.10] [JohnAndRich]

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Rich

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I know in the past, when people used to be respectful, it was always considered rude to tell an author how to write their story.
...and I try hard not to overreact to that type of criticism, although I do fail sometimes. Sigh.

Mark Twain had , some of which I love. is a hoot as well.

For the record, however, the vast, vast majority of the comments that have been made in this thread have been supportive, or have been constructive criticism, and I'm thankful for that. I'm also not offended if someone doesn't like this project - everybody has their own tastes, and there's no way to appeal to them all. Finally, this story was targeted at somewhat of a niche from the start, so it's only to be expected that it won't have the kind of appeal that some of the others might.
 

crotch69

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Aug 20, 2020
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Why do we need to know these things over what's going through the Melissa's mind instead? I'll tell you why, because he's your self-insert. You say it was a conscious choice to write the story this way and trust me, I know. It was the atypical conscious choice of a male writer to have zero empathy for their female characters. Even if the protagonist was a woman, you'd still anchor story telling to a man. Be it a random nobody or someone close to her. Even that "scenes that didn't happen" DLC of yours does this when you tell Melissa's story entirely from Tom's point of view.
Cathy Newman is that you? Just reminded me of that skit with Peterson.
 
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mrMarko

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Jan 10, 2021
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I renew my compliments to Rich for this VN, which never ceases to amaze me.
I only had the opportunity to play the new version yesterday and I didn't expect the drastic change of Parker, into a son of a bitch equal to the cops. I didn't expect him to be so furious with poor Ashley. :(
At this point I have an idea of how it will end: Parker is now screwed!
I could venture the plot, but if it were true it would only be a huge spoiler, so I'll keep quiet! :cool:

Congratulations again to Rich! :)
 

Rich

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I renew my compliments to Rich for this VN, which never ceases to amaze me.
I only had the opportunity to play the new version yesterday and I didn't expect the drastic change of Parker, into a son of a bitch equal to the cops. I didn't expect him to be so furious with poor Ashley. :(
At this point I have an idea of how it will end: Parker is now screwed!
I could venture the plot, but if it were true it would only be a huge spoiler, so I'll keep quiet! :cool:

Congratulations again to Rich! :)
Thank you, mrMarko. Your kind words mean a lot.

Yes, as you've observed, the "a" path is the "Parker goes to the dark side" route. This is actually the story that JohnCBB and I had blocked out from the beginning. We jokingly referred to it as "Darth Parker" - kind of paralleling Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader. The "b" path ("Parker as hero" / "Happy ending") was an alternate path that I couldn't resist putting in... just because. But the concepts for that path came much later.

A little disappointed that the "good guy" route is shorter reinforcing the common VN trope of being bad getting more sex scenes.
I didn't respond to this particular item earlier, asahibito, but the above is the explanation for your observation. It wasn't consciously intending to reinforce that trope - it's simply due to the fact that when JohnCBB was still involved, we'd blocked out a lot more possible content for the "bad guy" path, because originally that was going to be all there was - just the one path. I just didn't do as good a job at fleshing out the "good guy" path on my own due to my own deficiencies as a writer.
 

Night Hacker

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Jul 3, 2021
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Why, thank you! I worked hard on her character's "look." As you've probably figured out, she's not just a "take a stock Daz character and run with it."
Hmmm... sounds like a challenge. I need to work on recreating her now! ;) She's a nice looking creation anyhow, nice work. Reminds me a little bit of people I have known in life.
 

shavone1

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Mar 20, 2020
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Why, thank you! I worked hard on her character's "look." As you've probably figured out, she's not just a "take a stock Daz character and run with it."
For sure, having a beautiful model makes the game much more enjoyable. I'm glad you tweaked it to your liking.
 

Rich

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Hmmm... sounds like a challenge. I need to work on recreating her now! ;)
You're obviously welcome to try. I've been asked several times to "give up my formula so I can make fan art" and haven't agreed to so far. FYI, she's a blend of three different Daz Studio characters, with additional knob-twiddling on top of it, so "pretty heavily customized."

Maybe some day...

She's a nice looking creation anyhow, nice work. Reminds me a little bit of people I have known in life.
And, again, thank you.
 
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Night Hacker

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You're obviously welcome to try. I've been asked several times to "give up my formula so I can make fan art" and haven't agreed to so far. FYI, she's a blend of three different Daz Studio characters, with additional knob-twiddling on top of it, so "pretty heavily customized."
Knob twiddling you say? Sounds like fun. :cool:
 
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Night Hacker

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You're obviously welcome to try. I've been asked several times to "give up my formula so I can make fan art" and haven't agreed to so far. FYI, she's a blend of three different Daz Studio characters, with additional knob-twiddling on top of it, so "pretty heavily customized."

Maybe some day...



And, again, thank you.

I decided to give a crack at recreating Melissa... this is what I ended up with...
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mullins

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Jan 3, 2021
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As long as we have a little time between updates and the door has been opened for alternate versions of Melissa...

I really love the look Rich has given Melissa...she looks luscious. But before Rich began the series I illustrated John's original story being as true to it as I could, with John's encouragement. That work went away when the site it was on folded, and since I do not have John's permission to repost his story it must remain exiled to my hard drive. But here is a scene from that story with my version of Melissa at that time.

"What the boys saw!"

cm2.png
 

Rich

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As long as we have a little time between updates and the door has been opened for alternate versions of Melissa...

I really love the look Rich has given Melissa...she looks luscious. But before Rich began the series I illustrated John's original story being as true to it as I could, with John's encouragement. That work went away when the site it was on folded, and since I do not have John's permission to repost his story it must remain exiled to my hard drive. But here is a scene from that story with my version of Melissa at that time.

"What the boys saw!"

View attachment 3158535
Cool. Out of curiosity, would you like me to see if I can put JohnCBB in touch with you so you could get permission to post it? I'm in touch with him off and on. Might make for an interesting "comic format" project or something similar if you didn't want to go the VN route.
 
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Night Hacker

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Hmmm. Might look a bit like her at a younger age...
Yeah, I may have to give up on this as I enjoy creating new characters too much. ;) I mess with skins, different head and body shapes, then go to town adjusting every other aspect of their body until I have something different. And I totally forget what I was originally doing. LMAO
 

mullins

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Jan 3, 2021
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Cool. Out of curiosity, would you like me to see if I can put JohnCBB in touch with you so you could get permission to post it? I'm in touch with him off and on. Might make for an interesting "comic format" project or something similar if you didn't want to go the VN route.
That would be great, Rich, and if he gives permission, I would want to get permission to continue his story that I came up with at the time showing what happened to the players afterwards. John did see that but it was not consistent with his idea of where it should go so I never posted it, although I had a lot of fun doing the story and the images. That John was willing to have the story completely changed from his original to your present epic makes me think he might have no objections now.

Now here's another teaser from the original story.
cm1a.png
 

oktabitt

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Dec 29, 2021
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o get permission to continue his story that I came up with at the time showing what happened to the players afterwards. John did see that but it was not consistent with his idea of where it should go so I never posted it, although I had a lot of fun doing the story and the images. That John was willing to have the story completely changed from his original to your pr
That would be great, Rich, and if he gives permission, I would want to get permission to continue his story that I came up with at the time showing what happened to the players afterwards. John did see that but it was not consistent with his idea of where it should go so I never posted it, although I had a lot of fun doing the story and the images. That John was willing to have the story completely changed from his original to your present epic makes me think he might have no objections now.

Now here's another teaser from the original story.
View attachment 3159585

It would nice if this story would share in public.
 
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4.00 star(s) 68 Votes