VN Ren'Py Completed Freeloading Family [v0.32] [FFCreations]

[Bloodguard]

So knowing that drama with the writer and stuff, wouldn't it be better to get someone else to write the last bit? Better than not finishing at all right? I mean middle school fan fiction, would make a better ending than the Alice ending we got. Just saying.

 

[dolfe67]

It seems like he won't be working to finish the game anytime soon

 

[SkyeJordan666]

Anyone got news on the writer? I saw on his twitter he said he was doing horribly mentally and was on the verge of losing his house. Apparently that's why he's been so absent.

Got in touch with the writer in a super-secret Discord server. She's doing fine for now.

 

[ARB582]

Got in touch with the writer in a super-secret Discord server. She's doing fine for now.

Regardless of how i feel about the ending I hope she's doing fine and things turn out better for her.

 

[char_2.0]

This gum is already a little bit stretched

 

[Smarmint]

Also hope he didn't say "F-it" and ditch the game after all the negative reviews on Alice's ending got to him. Which I feel like has at least a decent probability of being true.

Well, I want to give credit to V.A. Laurie for writing a great story with Freeloading Family, for the first 90% of the game that is, but once we got the time skip, it was honestly terrible. The joy I felt with each FF update, quickly turned into a pit in my stomach as I saw each ending get worse and worse.

Maybe I am just not the audience for what the writer had in mind, but every ending so far has been horrible and depressing. For example, Leah was a great character, and I wanted to see some personal growth for her, and playing as the MC, nothing positive came out of it. It was just sad and depressing.

Is the point of this VN, that everything in life, including all relationships, eventually turn to shit? If so, I see enough of that in real life, and just looking around at what is going on in the world.

Maybe V.A Laurie was inspired by Acting Lessons, but if so, she took all the wrong lessons from that VN. The cruel and heartless ending, was not it's high point. I wish her the best in her personal life, and she has a great ability to write compelling and immersive stories, but as I am sure she realizes, her endings need a lot of work if she doesn't want to turn off 95% of her readers.

 

[BeansAndToast]

So I've been thinking, and I think I finally figured out what really sat badly with Alice's ending. The prior endings all primed us for emotional monogamy, where the MC must choose who he loves and will spend his life with. The author chose to buck that trend ONLY for Alice. We as the player, watch the MC commit to emotional monogamy, and Alice fail to maintain that commitment. What the author may have meant to show was the MC and Alice maintaining multiple relationships outside of their marriage, what he actually showed was an MC that had threesomes with his wife, while his wife maintained long term romantic relationships on the side, many of which the MC was not allowed to participate in. At that point why even be married? Had the author just gone with a more traditional open marriage instead, where they both have primarily physical outside relationships, I don't think there would be the backlash that there was. Or if he had gone the Kurt Russel/Goaldie Hawn route of never getting married, but still maintaining a strong relationship.

TL/DR: marriage communicates a level of commitment to players that confuses and frustrates many of them when it is not adhered to.

 

[Antera]

So I've been thinking, and I think I finally figured out what really sat badly with Alice's ending. The prior endings all primed us for emotional monogamy, where the MC must choose who he loves and will spend his life with. The author chose to buck that trend ONLY for Alice. We as the player, watch the MC commit to emotional monogamy, and Alice fail to maintain that commitment. What the author may have meant to show was the MC and Alice maintaining multiple relationships outside of their marriage, what he actually showed was an MC that had threesomes with his wife, while his wife maintained long term romantic relationships on the side, many of which the MC was not allowed to participate in. At that point why even be married? Had the author just gone with a more traditional open marriage instead, where they both have primarily physical outside relationships, I don't think there would be the backlash that there was. Or if he had gone the Kurt Russel/Goaldie Hawn route of never getting married, but still maintaining a strong relationship.

TL/DR: marriage communicates a level of commitment to players that confuses and frustrates many of them when it is not adhered to.

All we ever wanted was Traditional good Romance/Marriage. Instead we got it this train wreck

 

[BeansAndToast]

All we ever wanted was Traditional good Romance/Marriage. Instead we got it this train wreck

I'm all for devs not giving fans what they want if it means a good story. There have been a few games that had relatively downer endings, that made sense given what came before. Not all stories need to be power fantasies with blue sky endings.

So here, what many of the audience wanted was a story book happy ending. My point was that if the author wanted to do a "Harem Lite" ending instead, then he could have, and it would have worked and made sense given what came before. However, what he gave us was basically a how-not-to of writing an adult vn ending.

 

[DrakoGhoul]

My love for this game was snuffed out after Hailey didn't getting an ending with all that build up she had. Her being treated like she didn't exist after the MC's dad arrived hurt a lot, at the time. While i don't hate Karina, i still didn't like that they thought her having an ending, especially the one she got, was completely justified but the MC being in a relationship with an older woman was too far. I don't exactly remember all of said arguments against Hailey having one so i rather not put words in the devs mouth by going further.

To be honest, after all these "endings", it might actually have been for the best that Hailey didn't get one. Even the ending everyone else was pinning for and hoping to be great, Alice's, ended horribly apparently. There's no telling how Hailey's or the "harem" one might've looked.

Don't get me wrong. I loved the content of this game and i still do. All the way up until the Dad came. Everything at and after that point was horrible, in my opinion, and that's what killed this game for me. I've pretty much gotten over it now, it's been a year and several months at this point . I Just came back to look at the comments and it really did went downhill like some suspected it would when the dad arrived and those endings came out.

I hope the dev's next game goes better than this one. At least when it comes to how endings are handled, everything else was fine.

 

[Spfjolietjake]

My love for this game was snuffed out after Hailey didn't getting an ending with all that build up she had. Her being treated like she didn't exist after the MC's dad arrived hurt a lot, at the time. While i don't hate Karina, i still didn't like that they thought her having an ending, especially the one she got, was completely justified but the MC being in a relationship with an older woman was too far. I don't exactly remember all of said arguments against Hailey having one so i rather not put words in the devs mouth by going further.

To be honest, after all these "endings", it might actually have been for the best that Hailey didn't get one. Even the ending everyone else was pinning for and hoping to be great, Alice's, ended horribly apparently. There's no telling how Hailey's or the "harem" one might've looked.

Don't get me wrong. I loved the content of this game and i still do. All the way up until the Dad came. Everything at and after that point was horrible, in my opinion, and that's what killed this game for me. I've pretty much gotten over it now, it's been a year and several months at this point . I Just came back to look at the comments and it really did went downhill like some suspected it would when the dad arrived and those endings came out.

I hope the dev's next game goes better than this one. At least when it comes to how endings are handled, everything else was fine.

As much as I love Hailey you may be right. If she would have gotten her own ending it may have ruined her as well. Still fucked up to marry her off in the other endings... she was the best.

Maybe it's a good thing we didn't get this writers "harem" ending because they sure as hell ruined all the others.

Still salty yes, it was a great damn vn until the dad showed back up as bestie and the endings began

 

[albul]

Nightmarish harem ending: MC marries all the main gals, but to make it more unique each of them has their own harem with which the MC has a bad relationship with or isn't allowed to interact with. The MC lives alone, and visits daily one of his wives, they have dinner together and maybe some sex if the bedroom isn't already occupied. But he's content, because he gets to have sex with different women on a regular basis, but can't shake the feeling that something is missing from his life.

 

[Bloodguard]

Nightmarish harem ending: MC marries all the main gals, but to make it more unique each of them has their own harem with which the MC has a bad relationship with or isn't allowed to interact with.

Nice try, but the actual Alice ending we got, was more of a nightmare for me. Just didn't fit the story at all. Wish it was just a nightmare.

 

[Pparker258]

Nightmarish harem ending: MC marries all the main gals, but to make it more unique each of them has their own harem with which the MC has a bad relationship with or isn't allowed to interact with. The MC lives alone, and visits daily one of his wives, they have dinner together and maybe some sex if the bedroom isn't already occupied. But he's content, because he gets to have sex with different women on a regular basis, but can't shake the feeling that something is missing from his life.

Why would you give ideas?

 

[Byczer]

Game of Moans

 

[Smarmint]

Still salty yes, it was a great damn vn until the dad showed back up as bestie and the endings began

The same with me. It's been what, a year now, and it still annoys me what happened whenever I remember this VN, occasionally. I think the writer or dev or both just got tired of it and wanted to end it quickly. It was the abrumptness of everything that really bothered me as a player. There was no sense that things were coming to an end, in fact more characters were being developed, Leah was starting to come out of her shell, for example, and things had just progressed with Karina and Haley, when everything just suddenly came to an end. At that point, once the father showed up, and time skipped, I honestly didn't care anymore, which is quite a feat since this was one of my favorite VNs up until this development.

Even if the endings were a lot better, it was still a miserable failure as a VN. I think of Freeloading Family as the poster child of how to totally screw up a very good VN, and annoy your entire fanbase. I think it would have been 100% better if the devs just abandoned it right before the time jump. Sure, we would all be disapointed, but we could still have looked back on Freeloading Family with fondness, like many of us to with "Our Fate", "The Changing Season", or "Lexi". It's unfortunate when a good VN, that you are invested in as a player, is abandoned, but things happen.

 

[Bloodguard]

That makes a lot of sense. Sometimes no ending is better than a crap ending. No More Secrets is another good example of this. Endings in my head were much better than the utter shyte endings we had to deal with.

 

[Rintal]

I actually stopped understanding the game, after the first dozen updates. It all started very intriguingly, with all this teasing and sexual tension on the edge. Then everything turned into a grotesque, tasteless harem.

 

[Byczer]

I actually stopped understanding the game, after the first dozen updates. It all started very intriguingly, with all this teasing and sexual tension on the edge. Then everything turned into a grotesque, tasteless harem.

Yeah first parts of game is awesome

 

[Rule97]

Wow wanted to checl if this game was alive and now its on hold, also people angry... Can I know what turn the story took ainxe i didn't play for several updates?