VN Ren'Py Friends in Need [Ch.10 v0.71] [NeonGhosts]

[NeonGhosts]

No, you can't. I was promised a romance option down the line if you refuse the boob job from the girl that isn't in the right frame of mind to jump into something new, both heavily hinted by in game choices and from Neon's posts here(can't find it now) and to this day nothing has come of it. In fact judging from their brief interactions in the shop I would not be surprised if that is out of the question entirely and now the only ways to start her routes are the boobjob, or blackmail...

This roadmap was posted in June 2023. Risa 'the pothead side hoe that is there just for quick fucks and comic relief', has now been eating 2 updates worth of screen time (no, seriously go and count all the previews for next chapter, 90% are scenes are related to her. ). While I love Ashe and Nicki both also have a disproportionate amount of focus as well, to the detriment of anyone else and the main story bits.

By the time anything meaningful can happen with Brittani the Jan-Feb 2024 will realistically be Jan 2025. Two years since I started playing the game. Unless, Neon considers the shop Brittani scenes as the promised content, if that is true then lol is all I have to say.

I am sorry, I don't want to rain on anyone's parade if you are still enjoying the content with my constant moaning, circling back it really feels like a game I will probably check once a year, if not longer from now on.

In Chapter 8, if you turned down Brittani in the loft, and were nice during the photo shoot, she's happier to see you, less nervous, etc. and she flirts a bit by showing off her work uniform.

Spoiler

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Is it a lot? No. But, it's appreciably different than if you were more aggressive with her, and it hints that she'll be warmer to you. You know, like you may want in a romantic relationship. But, she's also not super cold to you if you did take her up on her offer. She just clearly feels a bit awkward about it.

I'm just going to skip over complaints about certain girls getting an outsized amount of time, because here's some other characters that have gotten the same complaint: Nicki, Ashe, Gabby, Viola, Pepper, Risa, Carolina, Madison, and actually literally every character in the game.

As for lol at the shop content, that was a late, unplanned addition in order to give Brittani fans a little content, since we hadn't seen her in a little while, and I figured I could tee up her next appearance. It's not uncommon for me to be working through an update only to realize, "Hey, this character would fit in really well, here.." and then I end up writing and rendering an extra scene. It happened in Chapter 6 with Mason, Chapter 7 with Risa, Chapter 8 with Brittani, and Chapter 9 with Pepper. Then, the schedule slips. But, I don't add these scenes, without thinking they'll benefit the story as a whole.

And it seems like that 'story as a whole' idea is something people keep having trouble with. Things happen in the story.. Because the story needs those things to happen. Risa was, initially, just planned as a foil to Carolina. Fun and free-spirited, to Carolina's uptight and rigid. Then, I realized she could work as a viewpoint character into some of the shady things MC keeps brushing up against. So, she took on some more screentime, to move the plot forward in a more interesting way.

Other characters who were never planned for, but wound up being pretty important: Ashe, Carolina, Brittani, Pepper, Viola, Wren..

I mean, I'm not really sure what to say here. It's a story. Characters show up when they have something to do, and they're not around when they don't. When they don't have interesting things to do, someone else gets center stage for a bit. I just don't get it, honestly. Do people get mad when they're reading A Storm of Swords and they get to a character POV they dislike?

"UGH, FUCK! Fucking Tarly. I'll just skip this one and go to the next Tyrion chapter -- such bullshit!"

I mean, do you want to go check in with Gabby? Okay.

• mc"Hey Gabby, how are you?"
• gb"Still mad at you. I'm waiting for a major plot development to occur, which will allow me to forgive you."
• mc"Oh, cool. I bet we'll do that when I see you in Chapter 10."
• gb"Bet."

Oh, here's Brittani.

• mc"Brittani, what's up?"
• bri"Uh, I just saw you today. I'm currently at work. I assume I'll see you tomorrow, or the next day? To audition for the part? But, it'd be helpful if you knew anyone with a Slavic accent to help me with the role."
• mc"Wow! Shockingly, I do! I'll just need to see her in Chapter 10, to tee that up."
• bri"Great, see you after that."

Now, for people who want to complain about the schedule, et al. -- go look at the date this thread launched. March 30th, a bit over two years ago.

Since then I've done: 8,687 images, eight full chapters, a Halloween update, and an April Fool's update. Oh, and I did The Student Loan during that time, which had another 189 images. All of which needed to be written, coded, and playtested, by someone who didn't know how to code or use Daz, before starting this. Add to that juggling my community, trying to navigate through the changing whims of payment processors, having a life, and working my real job, and I think I'm doing okay.

I'm not going to sit here and defend my work ethic, because quite frankly it speaks for itself. I don't like to compare myself to other devs, but there are teams of two or three devs, people who do this for an actual living, who don't put out as much work as I do by myself.

And despite this, I get to deal with people telling me, literally since Chapter One, that the plot branches have clearly spun out of control, and I'll never be able to manage it. Yet somehow I'm still here, putting out releases every four months, and moving the story forward. Two years in! There are TV shows that run for five, six, seven years or more. Fuck, Spider-Man's been published since the 60s.

It's serial storytelling. It takes time.

If you feel you can do better, I make all the Daz files for my characters available in the fanart thread. Have at it! I look forward to playing your much better game.

 

[xert13]

In Chapter 8, if you turned down Brittani in the loft, and were nice during the photo shoot, she's happier to see you, less nervous, etc. and she flirts a bit by showing off her work uniform.

Spoiler

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Is it a lot? No. But, it's appreciably different than if you were more aggressive with her, and it hints that she'll be warmer to you. You know, like you may want in a romantic relationship. But, she's also not super cold to you if you did take her up on her offer. She just clearly feels a bit awkward about it.

I'm just going to skip over complaints about certain girls getting an outsized amount of time, because here's some other characters that have gotten the same complaint: Nicki, Ashe, Gabby, Viola, Pepper, Risa, Carolina, Madison, and actually literally every character in the game.

As for lol at the shop content, that was a late, unplanned addition in order to give Brittani fans a little content, since we hadn't seen her in a little while, and I figured I could tee up her next appearance. It's not uncommon for me to be working through an update only to realize, "Hey, this character would fit in really well, here.." and then I end up writing and rendering an extra scene. It happened in Chapter 6 with Mason, Chapter 7 with Risa, Chapter 8 with Brittani, and Chapter 9 with Pepper. Then, the schedule slips. But, I don't add these scenes, without thinking they'll benefit the story as a whole.

And it seems like that 'story as a whole' idea is something people keep having trouble with. Things happen in the story.. Because the story needs those things to happen. Risa was, initially, just planned as a foil to Carolina. Fun and free-spirited, to Carolina's uptight and rigid. Then, I realized she could work as a viewpoint character into some of the shady things MC keeps brushing up against. So, she took on some more screentime, to move the plot forward in a more interesting way.

Other characters who were never planned for, but wound up being pretty important: Ashe, Carolina, Brittani, Pepper, Viola, Wren..

I mean, I'm not really sure what to say here. It's a story. Characters show up when they have something to do, and they're not around when they don't. When they don't have interesting things to do, someone else gets center stage for a bit. I just don't get it, honestly. Do people get mad when they're reading A Storm of Swords and they get to a character POV they dislike?

"UGH, FUCK! Fucking Tarly. I'll just skip this one and go to the next Tyrion chapter -- such bullshit!"

I mean, do you want to go check in with Gabby? Okay.

• mc"Hey Gabby, how are you?"
• gb"Still mad at you. I'm waiting for a major plot development to occur, which will allow me to forgive you."
• mc"Oh, cool. I bet we'll do that when I see you in Chapter 10."
• gb"Bet."

Oh, here's Brittani.

• mc"Brittani, what's up?"
• bri"Uh, I just saw you today. I'm currently at work. I assume I'll see you tomorrow, or the next day? To audition for the part? But, it'd be helpful if you knew anyone with a Slavic accent to help me with the role."
• mc"Wow! Shockingly, I do! I'll just need to see her in Chapter 10, to tee that up."
• bri"Great, see you after that."

Now, for people who want to complain about the schedule, et al. -- go look at the date this thread launched. March 30th, a bit over two years ago.

Since then I've done: 8,687 images, eight full chapters, a Halloween update, and an April Fool's update. Oh, and I did The Student Loan during that time, which had another 189 images. All of which needed to be written, coded, and playtested, by someone who didn't know how to code or use Daz, before starting this. Add to that juggling my community, trying to navigate through the changing whims of payment processors, having a life, and working my real job, and I think I'm doing okay.

I'm not going to sit here and defend my work ethic, because quite frankly it speaks for itself. I don't like to compare myself to other devs, but there are teams of two or three devs, people who do this for an actual living, who don't put out as much work as I do by myself.

And despite this, I get to deal with people telling me, literally since Chapter One, that the plot branches have clearly spun out of control, and I'll never be able to manage it. Yet somehow I'm still here, putting out releases every four months, and moving the story forward. Two years in! There are TV shows that run for five, six, seven years or more. Fuck, Spider-Man's been published since the 60s.

It's serial storytelling. It takes time.

If you feel you can do better, I make all the Daz files for my characters available in the fanart thread. Have at it! I look forward to playing your much better game.

...and that my friends is a smack down! LoL You go Dev, it's your game.

 

[Joshy92]

In Chapter 8, if you turned down Brittani in the loft, and were nice during the photo shoot, she's happier to see you, less nervous, etc. and she flirts a bit by showing off her work uniform.

Spoiler

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Is it a lot? No. But, it's appreciably different than if you were more aggressive with her, and it hints that she'll be warmer to you. You know, like you may want in a romantic relationship. But, she's also not super cold to you if you did take her up on her offer. She just clearly feels a bit awkward about it.

I'm just going to skip over complaints about certain girls getting an outsized amount of time, because here's some other characters that have gotten the same complaint: Nicki, Ashe, Gabby, Viola, Pepper, Risa, Carolina, Madison, and actually literally every character in the game.

As for lol at the shop content, that was a late, unplanned addition in order to give Brittani fans a little content, since we hadn't seen her in a little while, and I figured I could tee up her next appearance. It's not uncommon for me to be working through an update only to realize, "Hey, this character would fit in really well, here.." and then I end up writing and rendering an extra scene. It happened in Chapter 6 with Mason, Chapter 7 with Risa, Chapter 8 with Brittani, and Chapter 9 with Pepper. Then, the schedule slips. But, I don't add these scenes, without thinking they'll benefit the story as a whole.

And it seems like that 'story as a whole' idea is something people keep having trouble with. Things happen in the story.. Because the story needs those things to happen. Risa was, initially, just planned as a foil to Carolina. Fun and free-spirited, to Carolina's uptight and rigid. Then, I realized she could work as a viewpoint character into some of the shady things MC keeps brushing up against. So, she took on some more screentime, to move the plot forward in a more interesting way.

Other characters who were never planned for, but wound up being pretty important: Ashe, Carolina, Brittani, Pepper, Viola, Wren..

I mean, I'm not really sure what to say here. It's a story. Characters show up when they have something to do, and they're not around when they don't. When they don't have interesting things to do, someone else gets center stage for a bit. I just don't get it, honestly. Do people get mad when they're reading A Storm of Swords and they get to a character POV they dislike?

"UGH, FUCK! Fucking Tarly. I'll just skip this one and go to the next Tyrion chapter -- such bullshit!"

I mean, do you want to go check in with Gabby? Okay.

• mc"Hey Gabby, how are you?"
• gb"Still mad at you. I'm waiting for a major plot development to occur, which will allow me to forgive you."
• mc"Oh, cool. I bet we'll do that when I see you in Chapter 10."
• gb"Bet."

Oh, here's Brittani.

• mc"Brittani, what's up?"
• bri"Uh, I just saw you today. I'm currently at work. I assume I'll see you tomorrow, or the next day? To audition for the part? But, it'd be helpful if you knew anyone with a Slavic accent to help me with the role."
• mc"Wow! Shockingly, I do! I'll just need to see her in Chapter 10, to tee that up."
• bri"Great, see you after that."

Now, for people who want to complain about the schedule, et al. -- go look at the date this thread launched. March 30th, a bit over two years ago.

Since then I've done: 8,687 images, eight full chapters, a Halloween update, and an April Fool's update. Oh, and I did The Student Loan during that time, which had another 189 images. All of which needed to be written, coded, and playtested, by someone who didn't know how to code or use Daz, before starting this. Add to that juggling my community, trying to navigate through the changing whims of payment processors, having a life, and working my real job, and I think I'm doing okay.

I'm not going to sit here and defend my work ethic, because quite frankly it speaks for itself. I don't like to compare myself to other devs, but there are teams of two or three devs, people who do this for an actual living, who don't put out as much work as I do by myself.

And despite this, I get to deal with people telling me, literally since Chapter One, that the plot branches have clearly spun out of control, and I'll never be able to manage it. Yet somehow I'm still here, putting out releases every four months, and moving the story forward. Two years in! There are TV shows that run for five, six, seven years or more. Fuck, Spider-Man's been published since the 60s.

It's serial storytelling. It takes time.

If you feel you can do better, I make all the Daz files for my characters available in the fanart thread. Have at it! I look forward to playing your much better game.

A game that's better than this? That's nearly impossible bro.

Anyway it doesn't matter who is in any given update imo. They are all so awesome and different in their own ways and that makes things really interesting. There isn't a babe in this I wouldn't hang out with.

 

[Dessolos]

Yeah like I said while I do have my favorites and even if some updates may have very little content of my favorites ( like how chapter 10 will). I could care less as I'm far more interested in seeing what Guy is going to do than spending time with my favorites.

 

[TigerWolfe]

In Chapter 8, if you turned down Brittani in the loft, and were nice during the photo shoot, she's happier to see you, less nervous, etc. and she flirts a bit by showing off her work uniform.

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Is it a lot? No. But, it's appreciably different than if you were more aggressive with her, and it hints that she'll be warmer to you. You know, like you may want in a romantic relationship. But, she's also not super cold to you if you did take her up on her offer. She just clearly feels a bit awkward about it.

I'm just going to skip over complaints about certain girls getting an outsized amount of time, because here's some other characters that have gotten the same complaint: Nicki, Ashe, Gabby, Viola, Pepper, Risa, Carolina, Madison, and actually literally every character in the game.

As for lol at the shop content, that was a late, unplanned addition in order to give Brittani fans a little content, since we hadn't seen her in a little while, and I figured I could tee up her next appearance. It's not uncommon for me to be working through an update only to realize, "Hey, this character would fit in really well, here.." and then I end up writing and rendering an extra scene. It happened in Chapter 6 with Mason, Chapter 7 with Risa, Chapter 8 with Brittani, and Chapter 9 with Pepper. Then, the schedule slips. But, I don't add these scenes, without thinking they'll benefit the story as a whole.

And it seems like that 'story as a whole' idea is something people keep having trouble with. Things happen in the story.. Because the story needs those things to happen. Risa was, initially, just planned as a foil to Carolina. Fun and free-spirited, to Carolina's uptight and rigid. Then, I realized she could work as a viewpoint character into some of the shady things MC keeps brushing up against. So, she took on some more screentime, to move the plot forward in a more interesting way.

Other characters who were never planned for, but wound up being pretty important: Ashe, Carolina, Brittani, Pepper, Viola, Wren..

I mean, I'm not really sure what to say here. It's a story. Characters show up when they have something to do, and they're not around when they don't. When they don't have interesting things to do, someone else gets center stage for a bit. I just don't get it, honestly. Do people get mad when they're reading A Storm of Swords and they get to a character POV they dislike?

"UGH, FUCK! Fucking Tarly. I'll just skip this one and go to the next Tyrion chapter -- such bullshit!"

I mean, do you want to go check in with Gabby? Okay.

• mc"Hey Gabby, how are you?"
• gb"Still mad at you. I'm waiting for a major plot development to occur, which will allow me to forgive you."
• mc"Oh, cool. I bet we'll do that when I see you in Chapter 10."
• gb"Bet."

Oh, here's Brittani.

• mc"Brittani, what's up?"
• bri"Uh, I just saw you today. I'm currently at work. I assume I'll see you tomorrow, or the next day? To audition for the part? But, it'd be helpful if you knew anyone with a Slavic accent to help me with the role."
• mc"Wow! Shockingly, I do! I'll just need to see her in Chapter 10, to tee that up."
• bri"Great, see you after that."

Now, for people who want to complain about the schedule, et al. -- go look at the date this thread launched. March 30th, a bit over two years ago.

Since then I've done: 8,687 images, eight full chapters, a Halloween update, and an April Fool's update. Oh, and I did The Student Loan during that time, which had another 189 images. All of which needed to be written, coded, and playtested, by someone who didn't know how to code or use Daz, before starting this. Add to that juggling my community, trying to navigate through the changing whims of payment processors, having a life, and working my real job, and I think I'm doing okay.

I'm not going to sit here and defend my work ethic, because quite frankly it speaks for itself. I don't like to compare myself to other devs, but there are teams of two or three devs, people who do this for an actual living, who don't put out as much work as I do by myself.

And despite this, I get to deal with people telling me, literally since Chapter One, that the plot branches have clearly spun out of control, and I'll never be able to manage it. Yet somehow I'm still here, putting out releases every four months, and moving the story forward. Two years in! There are TV shows that run for five, six, seven years or more. Fuck, Spider-Man's been published since the 60s.

It's serial storytelling. It takes time.

If you feel you can do better, I make all the Daz files for my characters available in the fanart thread. Have at it! I look forward to playing your much better game.

Get 'em Neon!

 

[Izakiya]

It's serial storytelling. It takes time.

If you feel you can do better, I make all the Daz files for my characters available in the fanart thread. Have at it! I look forward to playing your much better game.

Bro, you could make the most amazing game with the best graphics and storytelling of all time and some people will still find a reason to complain. Fuck it, just do what you enjoy.

 

[NeonGhosts]

...and that my friends is a smack down! LoL You go Dev, it's your game.

I'm really not trying to be a jerk, honest. But, this is a genre where there's a graveyard of 0.1 and 0.2 games that died on the vine. Theres a reason for that, and it’s that this stuff is, despite appearances, hard.

I’m not digging ditches, but there’s a mental and physical exhaustion component to being glued to a screen for hours a day.

 

[Joshy92]

If NeonGhosts loves what he's doing than that's all that really matters. A game is better when it's made with passion.

 

[Vidal the king of Pervert]

I'm really not trying to be a jerk, honest. But, this is a genre where there's a graveyard of 0.1 and 0.2 games that died on the vine. Theres a reason for that, and it’s that this stuff is, despite appearances, hard.

I’m not digging ditches, but there’s a mental and physical exhaustion component to being glued to a screen for hours a day.

I think you're close to being burnt out

this is how games get abandoned if you want some advice, my brother

I think it's the best for you and the game if you took a couple of weeks off

you know to recharge your batteries and get refreshed

is only benefit you and the game in the long run

a lot of developers don't pay attention to their mental health and burnout until it's too late

 

[kaldrangar]

I'm really not trying to be a jerk, honest. But, this is a genre where there's a graveyard of 0.1 and 0.2 games that died on the vine. Theres a reason for that, and it’s that this stuff is, despite appearances, hard.

I’m not digging ditches, but there’s a mental and physical exhaustion component to being glued to a screen for hours a day.

I fully support you taking charge of your own artistic vision and telling the haters to get fukt. Your game is a well written, engaging gem and you shouldn't listen to anyone telling you how to write it otherwise or how your pace should be. I don't care if like 90% the other games I'm following from here die. I want this one to thrive.


Side note: Brittani reminds me of Gabby Carter and Gabby reminds me of Brittany White, so it was very confusing at first lol.

 

[Joshy92]

I fully support you taking charge of your own artistic vision and telling the haters to get fukt. Your game is a well written, engaging gem and you shouldn't listen to anyone telling you how to write it otherwise or how your pace should be. I don't care if like 90% the other games I'm following from here die. I want this one to thrive.


Side note: Brittani reminds me of Gabby Carter and Gabby reminds me of Brittany White, so it was very confusing at first lol.

I agree with everything you just said. I'll admit I'm very hard to please when it comes to serious story driven games like this and I have been fucking loving this since the moment Nicki showed up at Guy's door.

Sometimes when I'm going about my day I'll think about the game and the girls in particular and it makes me happy.

 

[PHIL101-YYouPPHard]

A game that's better than this? That's nearly impossible bro.

Anyway it doesn't matter who is in any given update imo. They are all so awesome and different in their own ways and that makes things really interesting. There isn't a babe in this I wouldn't hang out with.

Yeah, same. I'm repeating myself, but seriously, even when I'm disappointed that this update will be cut in half and my ~favorite girls won't show up, I'm always satisfied and find myself gravitating to another LI. The LI that I probably have the least interest in is Madison. But, I'm fully looking forward to her writing & scenes beckoning me over

And as far as this site's events go, there's basically 3 kinds of pirates:

Seaworthy adventurers like me n Joshy who appreciate the booty we find and trade polite exchanges with some fellow swashbucklers we meet along the way

Booty-obsessed zombie seadogs that will only ever contemplate MORE MORE MORE NOW NOW NOW

And then the quiet haulers with better shit to do than watch us swordplay each other out at sea, yargh!

 

[Machete]

Do people get mad when they're reading A Storm of Swords and they get to a character POV they dislike?

"UGH, FUCK! Fucking Tarly. I'll just skip this one and go to the next Tyrion chapter -- such bullshit!"

Well, actually yes, and this is an amazing analogy. It didn't happen to me, but i know a lot of people who skipped the "boring POVs" of ASoIaF. I don't know how they kept pace with the story but i know they did.

And this is an amazing analogy because Friends in Need is suffering from the very same situation.

It's only normal that players, even more than Martin's readers, being this a waifus porn game, have their favored characters and their characters they like less or not at all. And of course every sequence about that LI they don't like is the "boring POV" to them. And it's pretty much unavoidable in a game with a solid narrative like this one. Other games get around this problem just setting the narration like "opt. A, this sequence plays, opt. B, it doesn't, but the story goes on the same anyway", but i don't think this can be applied to Friends in Need.

Please understand that we might like to fight and be jerks here, but we are, by the end of the day, just providing feedbacks. If it's a common occourrence that players complain about 'to much time on character X and too little on character Y' maybe there actually is some perceived issue.

Personally, by my point of view, and i'm by no mean a prefessional storyteller, i think the problem is there are too many characters and LIs to begin with. As i mentioned, and having been a software developed and a university graduated in computer science myself i have an idea, forking means exponential. The more you have mutually exclusive events, the more paths you need to keep writing and developing short of later killing/merging branches.

That's why i hypothesized that, at a certain point, the game will need to be rationalizied, meaning that you will need to choose which plot to carry on and which to close or drop and whether to sideline and demote some less popular LIs (and of course there will be tears and gnashing of teeth).

Again, it's just feedbacks and good spirited recommendations.

 

[NebulousShooter]

-snip-

First of all I always appreciate it when devs take the time to interact with the communities here and especially when its as in depth as this!

This discussion was never about the numbers you pull, no one is denying you are consistently a workhorse, this was from day one a discussion about the structure of the updates and the story pace, especially relationship wise. Imo, 'the everyone waits their turn' is the worst way possible and its not unique to your game at all, its just this was the game I cared enough to post about it. Couple it with your second by second following Guy's life and you are left with a guarantee section of your fanbase always displeased with how many updates they have to wait until they see their waifus again. This time it was me and my kind.

Despite being too stubborn to agree with us, you yourself took measures to combat this(maybe subconsciously ), you talked about timeskips instead of following every second of Guy's life that and more mini scenes like the Brittani one( which didn't work for me personally, I already elaborated why

Spoiler

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, but absolutely works in general.). Honestly, just to keep in touch with the characters will do wonders for how the episodic nature of the game feels for every corner of the fanbase.

Because how it is right now I can play a game that updates once a year but makes sure to give some attention to each LI, no matter how brief, or skip FIN until I play 3 updates at a time, similar wait time, same, or more total renders in yours and odds are that I would still have zero content with my favorite since only half of ingame days have passed and 'why would I see the girl again so soon?', 'Why would Gabby get over it in half a day?.'

With timeskips, you can more easily explain why LI can pop in the story more often without it fucking too much with the main story flow. It would also help if the game was not strictly POV, just a few renders of them doing their thing it will be something rather than completely missing from the game for 3-4 chapters in a row.

Chapter 7 with Risa

My bad, so its 3 updates in a row she has screen time, not 2. I wonder why my dislike of the slutty brat that needs to be saved from herself archetype has turned into full blown hatred for her character

Other games get around this problem just setting the narration like "opt. A, this sequence plays, opt. B, it doesn't, but the story goes on the same anyway", but i don't think this can be applied to Friends in Need.

pretty much, since she is now tied with the alleged main plot we can look forward to more and more unavoidable scenes the MC gets dragged into...


Now, honest question, was the new villain planned from the start, because I assumed the bad guys will be Jamie, Brent and maybe the people that he owed money to, or is he YET another new character to pile on? And if you planned it from the start, do you think it was a good narrative choice to introduce him 8 chapters in?

I'm really not trying to be a jerk

No offense taken, you can go even harder if the rules allow it, I rather people talk it out, regardless of tone, than devs keeping frustrations with folks her bottled until they can't take it anymore and decide to leave the platform in fear of not looking unprofessional, or some other stupid notion like that.

TL, DR, Please no more new characters, cringy streamers, characters unnecessarily getting upgraded to series regulars, 10 versions of jumping between blackmail and rape routes and MOAR Brittani! Hopefully before chapter 11.

Spoiler: EDIT

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[Dessolos]

My bad, so its 3 updates in a row she has screen time, not 2. I wonder why my dislike of the slutty brat that needs to be saved from herself archetype has turned into full blown hatred for her character

I mean until recently her I felt her screen time been super short and barley even there barley even felt like a side character to be honest. I totally understand this take however as it's how I felt about her until the last update. However unlike you my opinion changed and now she is one of my new favorites either 3rd or 4th favorite cant decided between her and Brittani . But that's cause neon has a talent for facial expression and the way he does them makes me read more into a character then what's probably there lol. That and my personality and nature for feeling bad for a character even if it's self inflicted makes it hard for me not to like someone like her haha. But I totally get why most people would dislike her im just a bit of a softie in these games where I just want to take care of a LI but not fix them.

With that being said I really hope for more Brittani she probably is who I want to see content for the most right now. I just hope when we get more content with her that her mother isn't there and we get some alone time with Brittani . I cant stand her mother probably the only character I hate in this game.

 

[ename144]

In Chapter 8, if you turned down Brittani in the loft, and were nice during the photo shoot, she's happier to see you, less nervous, etc. and she flirts a bit by showing off her work uniform.

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Is it a lot? No. But, it's appreciably different than if you were more aggressive with her, and it hints that she'll be warmer to you. You know, like you may want in a romantic relationship. But, she's also not super cold to you if you did take her up on her offer. She just clearly feels a bit awkward about it.

I'm just going to skip over complaints about certain girls getting an outsized amount of time, because here's some other characters that have gotten the same complaint: Nicki, Ashe, Gabby, Viola, Pepper, Risa, Carolina, Madison, and actually literally every character in the game.

As for lol at the shop content, that was a late, unplanned addition in order to give Brittani fans a little content, since we hadn't seen her in a little while, and I figured I could tee up her next appearance. It's not uncommon for me to be working through an update only to realize, "Hey, this character would fit in really well, here.." and then I end up writing and rendering an extra scene. It happened in Chapter 6 with Mason, Chapter 7 with Risa, Chapter 8 with Brittani, and Chapter 9 with Pepper. Then, the schedule slips. But, I don't add these scenes, without thinking they'll benefit the story as a whole.

And it seems like that 'story as a whole' idea is something people keep having trouble with. Things happen in the story.. Because the story needs those things to happen. Risa was, initially, just planned as a foil to Carolina. Fun and free-spirited, to Carolina's uptight and rigid. Then, I realized she could work as a viewpoint character into some of the shady things MC keeps brushing up against. So, she took on some more screentime, to move the plot forward in a more interesting way.

Other characters who were never planned for, but wound up being pretty important: Ashe, Carolina, Brittani, Pepper, Viola, Wren..

I mean, I'm not really sure what to say here. It's a story. Characters show up when they have something to do, and they're not around when they don't. When they don't have interesting things to do, someone else gets center stage for a bit. I just don't get it, honestly. Do people get mad when they're reading A Storm of Swords and they get to a character POV they dislike?

"UGH, FUCK! Fucking Tarly. I'll just skip this one and go to the next Tyrion chapter -- such bullshit!"

I mean, do you want to go check in with Gabby? Okay.

• mc"Hey Gabby, how are you?"
• gb"Still mad at you. I'm waiting for a major plot development to occur, which will allow me to forgive you."
• mc"Oh, cool. I bet we'll do that when I see you in Chapter 10."
• gb"Bet."

Oh, here's Brittani.

• mc"Brittani, what's up?"
• bri"Uh, I just saw you today. I'm currently at work. I assume I'll see you tomorrow, or the next day? To audition for the part? But, it'd be helpful if you knew anyone with a Slavic accent to help me with the role."
• mc"Wow! Shockingly, I do! I'll just need to see her in Chapter 10, to tee that up."
• bri"Great, see you after that."

Now, for people who want to complain about the schedule, et al. -- go look at the date this thread launched. March 30th, a bit over two years ago.

Since then I've done: 8,687 images, eight full chapters, a Halloween update, and an April Fool's update. Oh, and I did The Student Loan during that time, which had another 189 images. All of which needed to be written, coded, and playtested, by someone who didn't know how to code or use Daz, before starting this. Add to that juggling my community, trying to navigate through the changing whims of payment processors, having a life, and working my real job, and I think I'm doing okay.

I'm not going to sit here and defend my work ethic, because quite frankly it speaks for itself. I don't like to compare myself to other devs, but there are teams of two or three devs, people who do this for an actual living, who don't put out as much work as I do by myself.

And despite this, I get to deal with people telling me, literally since Chapter One, that the plot branches have clearly spun out of control, and I'll never be able to manage it. Yet somehow I'm still here, putting out releases every four months, and moving the story forward. Two years in! There are TV shows that run for five, six, seven years or more. Fuck, Spider-Man's been published since the 60s.

It's serial storytelling. It takes time.

If you feel you can do better, I make all the Daz files for my characters available in the fanart thread. Have at it! I look forward to playing your much better game.

I've said before that I do not question your work ethic and I stand by that. The rate at which you produce not only content, but high quality content, is fantastic. The question is, as you say, about the big picture, and personally I don't find your Storm of Swords analogy all that reassuring. There's a lot to be gained by having a broad focus and big vibrant world, no question. I can't help but notice, however, that by tinkering with his basic storyline to add lots of extra content for side characters, Martin created such a tangled mess that he's spent over a decade trying to sort things out and there's no end in sight. Frankly it seems unlikely he'll ever finish the series.

I don't want that to happen to this game. So if I seem to be complaining about you or your work, please understand it is never meant as a slight. This game has nearly limitless potential, but we're all only mortal. IMHO, sometimes seeing the big picture means cutting a little of the potential short so you can actually capitalize on the rest.

 

[Seiko126]

The way this NebulousShooter is going on I would assume he's responsible for funding at least 60% of the project. Must've been the inspiration for the MC. Good on you mate.

 

[Joshy92]

First of all I always appreciate it when devs take the time to interact with the communities here and especially when its as in depth as this!

This discussion was never about the numbers you pull, no one is denying you are consistently a workhorse, this was from day one a discussion about the structure of the updates and the story pace, especially relationship wise. Imo, 'the everyone waits their turn' is the worst way possible and its not unique to your game at all, its just this was the game I cared enough to post about it. Couple it with your second by second following Guy's life and you are left with a guarantee section of your fanbase always displeased with how many updates they have to wait until they see their waifus again. This time it was me and my kind.

Despite being too stubborn to agree with us, you yourself took measures to combat this(maybe subconsciously ), you talked about timeskips instead of following every second of Guy's life that and more mini scenes like the Brittani one( which didn't work for me personally, I already elaborated why

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, but absolutely works in general.). Honestly, just to keep in touch with the characters will do wonders for how the episodic nature of the game feels for every corner of the fanbase.

Because how it is right now I can play a game that updates once a year but makes sure to give some attention to each LI, no matter how brief, or skip FIN until I play 3 updates at a time, similar wait time, same, or more total renders in yours and odds are that I would still have zero content with my favorite since only half of ingame days have passed and 'why would I see the girl again so soon?', 'Why would Gabby get over it in half a day?.'

With timeskips, you can more easily explain why LI can pop in the story more often without it fucking too much with the main story flow. It would also help if the game was not strictly POV, just a few renders of them doing their thing it will be something rather than completely missing from the game for 3-4 chapters in a row.

My bad, so its 3 updates in a row she has screen time, not 2. I wonder why my dislike of the slutty brat that needs to be saved from herself archetype has turned into full blown hatred for her character

pretty much, since she is now tied with the alleged main plot we can look forward to more and more unavoidable scenes the MC gets dragged into... View attachment 3617016


Now, honest question, was the new villain planned from the start, because I assumed the bad guys will be Jamie, Brent and maybe the people that he owed money to, or is he YET another new character to pile on? And if you planned it from the start, do you think it was a good narrative choice to introduce him 8 chapters in?

No offense taken, you can go even harder if the rules allow it, I rather people talk it out, regardless of tone, than devs keeping frustrations with folks her bottled until they can't take it anymore and decide to leave the platform in fear of not looking unprofessional, or some other stupid notion like that.

TL, DR, Please no more new characters, cringy streamers, characters unnecessarily getting upgraded to series regulars, 10 versions of jumping between blackmail and rape routes and MOAR Brittani! Hopefully before chapter 11.

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I kind of disagree about Risa how is she a slutty brat? Has she been with many guys?

 

[Dr.Slime]

First of all I always appreciate it when devs take the time to interact with the communities here and especially when its as in depth as this!

This discussion was never about the numbers you pull, no one is denying you are consistently a workhorse, this was from day one a discussion about the structure of the updates and the story pace, especially relationship wise. Imo, 'the everyone waits their turn' is the worst way possible and its not unique to your game at all, its just this was the game I cared enough to post about it. Couple it with your second by second following Guy's life and you are left with a guarantee section of your fanbase always displeased with how many updates they have to wait until they see their waifus again. This time it was me and my kind.

Despite being too stubborn to agree with us, you yourself took measures to combat this(maybe subconsciously ), you talked about timeskips instead of following every second of Guy's life that and more mini scenes like the Brittani one( which didn't work for me personally, I already elaborated why

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

, but absolutely works in general.). Honestly, just to keep in touch with the characters will do wonders for how the episodic nature of the game feels for every corner of the fanbase.

Because how it is right now I can play a game that updates once a year but makes sure to give some attention to each LI, no matter how brief, or skip FIN until I play 3 updates at a time, similar wait time, same, or more total renders in yours and odds are that I would still have zero content with my favorite since only half of ingame days have passed and 'why would I see the girl again so soon?', 'Why would Gabby get over it in half a day?.'

With timeskips, you can more easily explain why LI can pop in the story more often without it fucking too much with the main story flow. It would also help if the game was not strictly POV, just a few renders of them doing their thing it will be something rather than completely missing from the game for 3-4 chapters in a row.

My bad, so its 3 updates in a row she has screen time, not 2. I wonder why my dislike of the slutty brat that needs to be saved from herself archetype has turned into full blown hatred for her character

pretty much, since she is now tied with the alleged main plot we can look forward to more and more unavoidable scenes the MC gets dragged into... View attachment 3617016


Now, honest question, was the new villain planned from the start, because I assumed the bad guys will be Jamie, Brent and maybe the people that he owed money to, or is he YET another new character to pile on? And if you planned it from the start, do you think it was a good narrative choice to introduce him 8 chapters in?

No offense taken, you can go even harder if the rules allow it, I rather people talk it out, regardless of tone, than devs keeping frustrations with folks her bottled until they can't take it anymore and decide to leave the platform in fear of not looking unprofessional, or some other stupid notion like that.

TL, DR, Please no more new characters, cringy streamers, characters unnecessarily getting upgraded to series regulars, 10 versions of jumping between blackmail and rape routes and MOAR Brittani! Hopefully before chapter 11.

Spoiler: EDIT

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I take time to count some renders that actually Risa appear on ( it was 336 render) which is wayy less than most of the characters , i know the feeling if you see character you may don't prefer like others you prefer , but even when Neon mentioned she appear in Ch7 (which is to my knowledge to be 4_3 ) she was like there for small time compare to other characters.
Also maybe i'm wrong about this assumption even when chapter 9 come still the game is early i dont think it's even in the mid stage of a game according to the story we have seen so far, i think when you say Villain in chapter 8 you think " hey, why he is being late to the game? isnt he supposed to be like early on or something?".
But again you still in the early stages of the game so far , just give it a time with the new update , there two types i have seen people who most play AVN ( not being jerk or anything or offend anyone ) but i know that there two
1- you like a character = you want to see her more
2- You don't like a character = you don't want to see her ever
nothing in between

I wish just for those have don't prefer certain character remember , this game provide us with variation of choices which
i havn't seen in a game so far thats why i like this game

Who knows maybe you like Risa after .
Some start hating character , but later on start to liking them.

 

[Dessolos]

I take time to count some renders that actually Risa appear on ( it was 336 render) which is wayy less than most of the characters , i know the feeling if you see character you may don't prefer like others you prefer , but even when Neon mentioned she appear in Ch7 (which is to my knowledge to be 4_3 ) she was like there for small time compare to other characters.
Also maybe i'm wrong about this assumption even when chapter 9 come still the game is early i dont think it's even in the mid stage of a game according to the story we have seen so far, i think when you say Villain in chapter 8 you think " hey, why he is being late to the game? isnt he supposed to be like early on or something?".
But again you still in the early stages of the game so far , just give it a time with the new update , there two types i have seen people who most play AVN ( not being jerk or anything or offend anyone ) but i know that there two
1- you like a character = you want to see her more
2- You don't like a character = you don't want to see her ever
nothing in between

I wish just for those have don't prefer certain character remember , this game provide us with variation of choices which
i havn't seen in a game so far thats why i like this game

Who knows maybe you like Risa after .
Some start hating character , but later on start to liking them.

Thanks for counting the renders. I kinda thought it was odd one of his complaints about Risa is about screen time when all I can recall are brief scenes until the last update and probably the next. Glad I was right and saying that.

2- You don't like a character = you don't want to see her ever
nothing in between

This is so true ive seen people say something to this effect in alot of other AVN's true. It's something I'll never understand even characters I hate I wouldn't want them to disappear entirely would feel really weird, I just simply don't play their path.

I kind of disagree about Risa how is she a slutty brat? Has she been with many guys?

I can kind of understand why he may think this with the way she flirts and acts. As when I was new to AVN's I was quick to call a LI slutty when she wasn't. It just took me awhile to have a different view as before I was set in my ways what was considered slutty thanks to tv and things ive seen online. But after playing a few of these "slutty" LI paths you learn they are anything but slutty, only a few actually are in these games at least to me. So I agree 100% Risa is not slutty. I personally think Risa is a damaged angel that needs our helped and to be comforted and guy to show her that he loves her and will protect her no matter what. As it feels like she doesn't know what it feels like to be loved. So she gets more hugs , cuddles , head pets and handholding than normal from me