VN Ren'Py Friends in Need [Ch.1-7 v0.73] [NeonGhosts]

[BallerTime]

Repeatedly going back to the "I'm hoping people trust me to tell the story" line when people are turned off by tattoos makes about as much sense as saying "I'm hoping people trust me to tell the story and they'll eventually get over their dislike of feet." You're not going to rewrite what people are turned on/off by.

It's not my game but, personally, I would have split the tattoos off into only the more degrading path. Reusing the same renders for both paths limits how far you can go in either direction and there probably needs to be a difference in looks between the two paths at some point to visibly show the effect your actions have on her anyway. So, why not just rip that bandaid off now?

It makes sense that she would be willing to go along with her asshole boyfriend's ideas to make money if the alternative is asking an even bigger asshole and rapist for help. It makes a lot less sense that she would put up with his shit if the person who helped her last time was not only her best friend but also incredibly rich and shared a mutual attraction with her and already had her questioning whether she should leave her boyfriend after a single encounter.

I was joking before, but after thinking about it a bit more, having that reveal turn out to be henna tattoos on the nice path would work well. The tattoos even look similar to the kinds of designs commonly associated with henna. It would show that she's still dumb/gullible/loyal enough to go along with whatever stupid get rich quick scheme her boyfriend had planned instead of kicking him to the curb, but it would indicate that there was a part of her that knew he was a bad influence and resisted getting a permanent reminder of him.

It still wouldn't solve my problem with her (not a huge fan of tattoos in general and especially these in particular but they're not an instant no for me), which is her treatment of the MC in the first two episodes. That can conceivably be written out of, but it would be hard to thread that needle. Why? She knows where the MC lives. If she wanted to get in touch with him at any point, she still could even if it turns out her boyfriend was being a controlling piece of shit and taking her phone away. We see proof that she can manage it at the end of this episode, for example. So, she's going to need a pretty fucking good excuse for three months of ghosting and then only showing up when she needs another favor. I can't think of an excuse that would work for me off the top of my head that wouldn't also be too over the top for the nice route IMO, like her boyfriend locking her in the basement or something equally melodramatic... but you're welcome to try.

As for the new characters, I was trying to get rid of the one at the bar (didn't care enough to learn her name) ASAP because her speech pattern is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. The step-mom at the bookstore (also forgot her name) is too obsequious and uninteresting to be attractive to me, based on what I've seen of her. The only positive of this entire chapter for me was Gabby. So, I'm being told to trust a writing process that, in my experience thus far, has a low success rate of roughly one fun part per chapter. You don't ask for trust. You earn it.

 

[NeonGhosts]

Well this has all been a delight.

I'll see everyone back here for the next update.

 

[Rinbael]

I understand that people might not like the tattoos on Nicki but they are what the dev wanted for her. So I think you guys will just have to accept it and go for one of the other characters or drop the game.

It's not as easy as just giving people a choice whether she has them or not, that would double the render count for any scenes that she is in and add extra variables for him to manage every time she appears. So either he makes her wear long sleeved tops and jumpers all the time or you guys are stuck with the tattoos.

I'm just curious NeonGhosts will we see some of the other characters from the banner in the next update? or do you want to avoid spoilers for now.

 

[Havik79]

Not bad despite being confusing how the MC acts at times and some of the choices, sex scenes are good, certainly a unique story.
Wish there were some future tags, like picks up the card with LGBT, so what future transexual, one of the girls in the main menu looks like maybe L or T, or anything else, maybe corrupting your sister into sex by hiring her as your assistant.
Although the biggest thing, when a dev runs away from a conversation on this site it never holds well for the future of the game.

 

[riichidesu]

Nice game, looking forward to the next update! I see the Nicky theme is a divided issue I prefer to save my opinion until there is more to her history, but saw not problem with the new look and well any girl that decide to remain to a abusive boyfriend after all that bs at the start of the game has more problems that some tattoos.

Btw, the patch only works if you start a game with it applied if you start a game without patch then applied it, it will do nothing, I was lucky that was mid chapter 2 when I notice and was not so bad to start over, but the more chapters the more painful will be

 

[BallerTime]

I understand that people might not like the tattoos on Nicki but they are what the dev wanted for her. So I think you guys will just have to accept it and go for one of the other characters or drop the game.

It's not as easy as just giving people a choice whether she has them or not, that would double the render count for any scenes that she is in and add extra variables for him to manage every time she appears. So either he makes her wear long sleeved tops and jumpers all the time or you guys are stuck with the tattoos.

I'm just curious NeonGhosts will we see some of the other characters from the banner in the next update? or do you want to avoid spoilers for now.

I don't know about anyone else, but I didn't suggest any new choices or variables. I suggested using existing choices that the player has already made... choices which we are told will already be leading her down very different routes... different routes which will already need more or less entirely separate renders at some point, otherwise both versions will feel watered down relative to what they could have been.

Think about it for a second. If the nicest, happiest route and the darkest, most degrading route end up looking similar enough that NeonGhosts can reuse a significant portion of the renders, that will probably be pretty disappointing for fans of at least one path (if not both from trying to split the difference). So, the only way there would be a doubling of renders would be if they decided to half-ass what they already committed to.

Hell, the suggestion even included a way to tie in a visual divergence between the routes as evidence of character development without even needing to change anything from the current ending of this episode, in addition to allowing a further delay for the visual divergence to even kick in (assuming there isn't another long time skip) as henna tattoos tend to stick around for a couple of weeks. It's not as unreasonable a suggestion as you make it out to be.

 

[Kukipett]

Well this has all been a delight.

I'll see everyone back here for the next update.

We will be for sure, and by the way do YOUR thing, don't listen too much to people who don't like this or don't like that. It's your story and up till now it was good, so don't change anything, you can't please everyone and when a dev tries to please everyone it ends up in crap most of the time.

 

[Meridian]

So as there is no gallery or mod for it, I decided to be rough with Nicki, so you make her your whore, but then as she is your only friend I decided to be nice instead, but the random blonde chick you could only be nice too, rape a friend but not a rando.

You need to try picking different choices with blonde. There are 4 scenes with her currently: consensual blowjob in alley, rape in alley, consensual sex in condo and blackmail sex in condo.

 

[Rinbael]

I don't know about anyone else, but I didn't suggest any new choices or variables. I suggested using existing choices that the player has already made... choices which we are told will already be leading her down very different routes... different routes which will already need more or less entirely separate renders at some point, otherwise both versions will feel watered down relative to what they could have been.

Think about it for a second. If the nicest, happiest route and the darkest, most degrading route end up looking similar enough that NeonGhosts can reuse a significant portion of the renders, that will probably be pretty disappointing for fans of at least one path (if not both from trying to split the difference). So, the only way there would be a doubling of renders would be if they decided to half-ass what they already committed to.

Hell, the suggestion even included a way to tie in a visual divergence between the routes as evidence of character development without even needing to change anything from the current ending of this episode, in addition to allowing a further delay for the visual divergence to even kick in (assuming there isn't another long time skip) as henna tattoos tend to stick around for a couple of weeks. It's not as unreasonable a suggestion as you make it out to be.

Your not understanding me. The way renpy works is that it needs the developer to tell it what render to show by coding it for example Nickitattoo=true in order for it to show the render with Nicki having tattoos or not which he would have to do every time there is a scene with Nicki.

It would also be annoying for the developer to spend a shit ton of time in DAZ studio posing and setting up lighting for scenes with Nicki and her tattoos and then having to do it again for Nicki without tattoos which would have to be a separate model in Daz.

Plus you are completely forgetting the fact that it is NeonGhost's game and what he says goes and if he wants to give her tattoos he can give her tattoos. Maybe you are right and they are temporary but you guys are not giving him a chance to explain if it is or not.

 

[GrimCiri]

I am really liking this game! I love the amount of choice for each girl though I do wish there was a bit more consensual degenerate stuff (like the only anal options right now are Rape right?) , I do worry though given how much choice there is on how complex the story has to become/ if choices later on don't matter, Nikki for example seemly ending up a whore of some kind regardless of your prior choices.

Also in this build does the homeless guy Mason ever do anything? I tried a few variations It seems odd how he is even named? (or is it for a later build?)

 

[DragonFire]

You need to try picking different choices with blonde. There are 4 scenes with her currently: consensual blowjob in alley, rape in alley, consensual sex in condo and blackmail sex in condo.

I tried a few different approaches with the blonde, but no sexual outcome of any kind, so could we have guide towards what to pick and when? I didn't download the patch btw, would that be needed for any of those results?

 

[Meridian]

Reaction to Nickis tats is quite hilarious. I guess thats what you get for writing a cliffhanger ending to an episodic patreon game. We cant even properly see her body in those couple of renders, we dont know what happened to her since first episode but people will just choose to imagine the worst. I bet if episode 2 ended without showing Nicky and we would only see her new look in episode 3 along with her telling us her story and maybe couple of scenes with her then reaction to her new look would be much more mellow.

Although I guess I can understand the reaction to a certain degree. When I like a character in some game I usually hate to see them change their looks or personality. When you like version A of a character but then developers rolls out a version B of the same character and call it "character developement" it can be a bit of a bummer. Here we had girl next door look turn into wanna be slutstagram influencer look. For people who wanted vanilla romance her new look can also demean her to the point of no return as far as likeability as romantic interest goes. When she took the money and run away to her idiot bf there was already some damage but if she also let him change her image into ms-struggling-pornstar look then that damage might be fatal. I would dig the objectifying aspect of that though since I never had an intention of pursuing her romantically.

Overall removing tattoos right now seems like a horrible idea. Theres probably shitloads of renders and writing involving them already made. Just keep going as planned and couple updates later you can poll supporters on patreon whether it would be worth making Nicki consider laser tattoo removal ingame.

I tried a few different approaches with the blonde, but no sexual outcome of any kind, so could we have guide towards what to pick and when? I didn't download the patch btw, would that be needed for any of those results?

I am too lazy to make a real guide sorry. I played with patch and it might be necessary for some of that content, cant tell for sure.

After you had your first conversation with her you can ask her to come to main characters condo. If you creeped her out during the conversation earlier she will say no but you can threaten her job and she will come with you. Before reaching the condo you 2 will walk through an alley, here you can make a move and kiss her. If she likes you there will be short scene and you will get interrupted by a random guy, if she really likes you(call her something demeaning instead of sweet during the scene for that) she will continue sucking dick despite the interruption. If she doesnt like you there will be an option for rape scene. If you had consensual fun in alley or didnt make a move there at all then you 2 will reach main characters condo. After some talking she will want to go home but you can stop her. If she likes you then there will be a consensual sex scene and if she doesnt like you there will be an option to blackmail her into sex.

 

[Darklord_1965]

Just discovered your game last night NeonGhosts and love it. Great job and I'm already looking forward to the next update. Gabby is so FU^%$N adorable so I hope we get more content with her and her mother in future updates. As for people's opinions, take it very lightly and please stick to your own vision. Opinions are like a$$holes, everybody has one and devs who try to please everyone always wind up screwing up their game or abandoning it. Surely hope you can control all the branching later in the game but so far you're doing an excellent job. So cheers to you and keep up the great work.

 

[BallerTime]

Your not understanding me. The way renpy works is that it needs the developer to tell it what render to show by coding it for example Nickitattoo=true in order for it to show the render with Nicki having tattoos or not which he would have to do every time there is a scene with Nicki.

It would also be annoying for the developer to spend a shit ton of time in DAZ studio posing and setting up lighting for scenes with Nicki and her tattoos and then having to do it again for Nicki without tattoos which would have to be a separate model in Daz.

Plus you are completely forgetting the fact that it is NeonGhost's game and what he says goes and if he wants to give her tattoos he can give her tattoos. Maybe you are right and they are temporary but you guys are not giving him a chance to explain if it is or not.

No, I think you're misunderstanding me. Game development is what I've been doing as a hobby for 20+ years and I think I have a pretty good handle on rendering and ren'py. I've even written a couple of game engines from scratch in C++ (since I use C++ in my day job) back in the day. The way I would do is to wait until I had the paths diverge enough that it no longer makes sense to write the same scene for both paths with a few conditionals being the only difference between them and then split them off into two completely separate paths, each with its own labels to jump to and have her path get locked in to one side at that turning point such that the complexity of any individual scene is kept to a minimum. That's when I would have the henna start wearing off.

I would even structure the game like this if both paths had her looking identical, because the two paths would be having very different things happening in them if it were up to me and trying to squeeze two very different scenes together into one or trying to handle every permutation of a player trying to go from light to dark or vice versa at every step would be more trouble than it's worth. Two main paths each with smaller changes within them based on future choices that would be easier to keep together.

As for the rendering side, NeonGhost already stated that it's the same model. The only differences are the hair/clothes/texture, which can be easily swapped out in Daz. None of that requires reposing as the same model would have the exact same rigging and the same pose would work on both, unless the different hair/clothes are clipping badly and you need a little tweak to fix that... and if you're using the same model in the same pose, why would you need to completely redo the lighting setup? The only doubled time from that is the rendering process itself, which can be queued up to render both while I work on other things. That's beside the point, because I would already be doing that stuff over again anyway... since, as I said, it would be silly to reuse most of the scenes if the two paths diverge as much as I think they should.

I think you'll also find that I never told anyone that they have to do anything. I'm only critiquing a product and offering advice. It's no skin off my nose if they don't take it. It's not paying my salary.

 

[ename144]

We will be for sure, and by the way do YOUR thing, don't listen too much to people who don't like this or don't like that. It's your story and up till now it was good, so don't change anything, you can't please everyone and when a dev tries to please everyone it ends up in crap most of the time.

I've said before and will likely say again that processing feedback is a delicate balancing act for developers. On the one hand, trying to please everyone will only result in a watered down product that will ultimately please no one. On the other hand, developers are only human, and they also have more insight into their creation than the players do. Sometimes they can make mistakes or create unintended confusion or ambiguity; the only way to recognize those instances is when fans point them out.

Ideally, the developer needs to drill down into the feedback, isolate the root cause of any concerns, and evaluate whether those concerns stem either from the critic misunderstanding what the game was trying to show, or from the critic wanting the game to go in different direction than what the author intended. The former is something that may need to be addressed (especially if the misunderstanding is widespread), the latter is probably a sign the game is not the critic's cup of tea. That's obviously much easier said than done, since the critic may not be able to articulate clearly the root cause of their concerns and because when you get into the weeds the nuances of what 'direction' the author intends can be difficult to quantify. Plus, the presentation of an argument doesn't map directly to its saliency. Ranting screeds can sometimes point out valid concerns and detailed analyses can sometimes be completely misguided. There aren't any easy answers. But hey, if it were easy anyone could be a developer, right?

At any rate, here's my feedback. I enjoyed the game so far. There are a few awkward transitions here and there where the MC's actions seem more consistent with one style than the other, but overall I think the game does a good job making the different approaches clear and distinctive. I'm not all that interested in the corruption side myself, but it's good to have options - that's what will ultimately sell us on our decisions. I rather like the characters so far, too. Nicki was relatively believable as a longtime friend in a weird bind (though obviously her explanation for the cliffhanger will need to be well handled), and Ashe was a surprising amount of fun. Gaby's hair didn't do much for me, but it fits her personality. Madison was a little flat despite a decent amount of screen time, but she has some potential and I did like her backstory with Ryan. I'm very curious to see where that will go if we decide not to be an asshole.

So good start so far, I'll definitely play Chapter 3 when it's released.

 

[The Odinson]

Is there going to be any girls that are virgins?
I know in this day and age its a bit of a leap... but never hurts to ask.
Was kinda hoping Gabby might be, especially once i saw you can pick her age, but having talked with her... nope, shithead HS bf got to her first and dumped her... There is just something incredibly appealing about being a girl's first.

 

[v1900]

Is there going to be any girls that are virgins?
I know in this day and age its a bit of a leap... but never hurts to ask.
Was kinda hoping Gabby might be, especially once i saw you can pick her age, but having talked with her... nope, shithead bf got to her first. There is just something incredibly appealing about being a girl's first.

MC's little sister might be.

 

[The Odinson]

Okay so I got done with the update and there is a lot to like!
Gabby is adorable, Ashe was pleasant surprise, and even Madison is looking interesting.

I have to say though, the thing about Nicki, I can understand the controversy. For me, its not about her having tattoos or not. Its the IMPLICATION that those tattoos and slutty look leave.
Looking at how she left us, spunky, nerdy, a little subby, and extremally conflicted about how her and her long time friend/crush had made the jump to lovers as well as how he helped her out of a horrible financial situation.
But she doesn't see him for months after that... I was thinking, "Sweet! We knocked her up! Pregancy content here we GOOOOO!" Buuut instead now Nicki shows up and she's tatted up and dressed like a whore...

It makes me think her bf whored her out for cash after seeing how well it worked with the MC and now she's come running back to MC. If that is her new Story Arc... DO NOT WANT.

This is especially jarring if you made the good guy choices and had a romantic evening of filthy sex with your best friend and long term crush, leaving her conflicted but hopeful. Like, it would be a completely different story if she left that asshole, came to you, and through your influence she slowly let her freak flag fly.

Corruption is fun when you are the one doing it, not when it happens off screen by an antagonist.

And this is coming from someone who liked Nicki in 1.0, despite how she came off, loves gabby, and is generally into alt girls.

 

[cneal]

I have downloaded the Android version but this time there is no evil path in my game. Can someone help?

 

[proximusArka]

Im having an error can someone help?