VN Ren'Py Friends in Need [Ch. 9 v0.60c] [NeonGhosts]

[Drew Anderson]

NeonGhosts Just a heads up, I found a few bugs in the new update (I downloaded from subscribestar). Not sure if anyone else has mentioned these. I didn't see them, but might not have gone back far enough.

First off, some missing images it appears on the Ashe romance path.



Second, an error here on the, er... non-romance path...

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Anyway, disregard if you already know about them! Liked the teaser! Excited for more!

 

[Jonowest]

View attachment 2577413

Overview
Friends in Need sees you stepping into the role of a man who made a very bad financial decision, which nearly resulted in your ruin. Years later, the reverberations of that decision echo once more through your life, suddenly enriching you beyond your wildest imaginings. When your best friend and long-time crush comes to you for help with her own financial misfortune, you realize that with nearly unlimited resources, you can be a force for good - or evil.

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Thread Updated: 2023-08-23
Release Date: 2023-08-22
Developer: NeonGhosts -

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Censored: No
Version: 0.4
OS: Windows, Linux, Mac
Language: English
Other Games: The Student Loan
Genre:

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Installation:

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Changelog:

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Developer Notes:

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Patch Instructions:

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DOWNLOAD
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- MEGA -

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- PIXELDRAIN -

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Mac:

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Android: PIXELDRAIN

Vanilla Version
Win/Linux: MEGA -

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Patches: -
Extras: Walkthrough - Fan Sigs - Fanart & Assets - (v.0.375) - Character Guide - Gallery Mod - Viola's Short Story

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is there an issue where the sound doesn't work.

 

[dinmor]

I have mixed feelings about it, tbh. I was motivated to do it, because I felt like it's not something I see done a lot and I'd gotten a few reviews along the lines of, "There's the illusion of choice, but it's all linear. :< " So, I wanted to do at least one update where there were some radical divergences in what the player sees.

Buuuut, it kinda reduced the overall length of the average playthrough. Between all five possible openings, there's like 400 images. Nicki's path is like.. 175 of those? So, if you go to Nicki's apartment in the last update, your playthrough will feel longer. If you don't, it'll feel a good bit shorter. Also, it was kind of a pain in the ass to unify all the paths.

I'm sure I'll do something similar again, but keep it to two possibilities, instead of five.

And yeah, I've never liked the way a lot of AVNs are like: Here's your choice, fuck her or don't. I try to even make the friendship/no sex paths interesting in their own right. Gabby's friendship one is a fun example. On her love path, she's angry at you for what she sees as you infantilizing her. On the corruption/dark path she's worried about how you'll exploit your hold on her, to varying degrees. But, on her friend route she's basically like, "Hey, it wasn't cool that you hid this from me," but MC explains (reasonably!) that he's known her less than a week, and didn't think it was his place to meddle in her family dynamic.

Not a supporter on anything, but my 2 cents: branching can be ok but I think a fair few people prefer not to play the games multiple times to get through every branch in a route, it'd be like reading books 5 times, or watching a movie 5 times, with a majority of the content being roughly the same, and only parts being different.
I should say tho, if its minor things with small variations, ie do you do x on day 1 or 2? no problem, does it result in closing / opening paths? ehh, becomes a turn-off imo. Maybe Im just lazy tho xD

Ofc, adding something like a "easy" mode or whatev, where branching doesnt happen, is gonna be even more code to write, and probably isnt a worthwhile solution.

 

[Joshy92]

I personally prefer games that have a decent amount of branching.
If I wanted to play something with barely any branching, I would play a kinetic novel
But I fucking hate those.

Friends in need is one of the best when it comes to different paths & stuff like that.

 

[Master of Puppets]

The problem is when you get multiple dimensions of branching. Like, we already have the good/corruptive/assault branching axis, you add another on top of that and instead of having to play it like four times you have to play it however many main routes there are multiplied by however many unrelated branches there are if you want to see everything. Instead of having just one save for assault, one for corruption and one for romance, you need to branch those out if you want to see how the different branches play out with Bad Guy and Good Guy.

	Ashe	Risa	Nicki	Pepper
Assault	1	2	3	4
Corruption	5	6	7	8
Romance	9	10	11	12

 

[Maviarab]

There's a reason I have 17 saves lol.

 

[SlapE]

I have mixed feelings about branching, I love to have different options, that way I can play through content how I want, I definitely prefer this to kinetic stuff in general. However, I'm not big on replaying games at all, I do it for a select few games, or games I really enjoyed that I haven't played in a long time. Other than that though, I don't bother replaying any because I would much rather be dedicating my time in life to playing new games or doing something else entirely, rather than play the same thing over and over.

This is just me though, I know there are people who love games with tons of replay value and will play the same game quite a few times in quick succession.

 

[Joshy92]

Yeah, I'm very picky so I really like games with replay value
After all there isn't a whole lot of these games I like.

I can't remember the names of them but there were some Japanese visual novels back in the day
With an insane amount of branching
I don't know how devs do it.

It's one of the reasons so many games are abandoned I think.
Well that & not making enough money to sustain the project.

I think the way NeonGhosts is handling the branching here is really good.

 

[Bruce F. Lee]

The problem is when you get multiple dimensions of branching. Like, we already have the good/corruptive/assault branching axis, you add another on top of that and instead of having to play it like four times you have to play it however many main routes there are multiplied by however many unrelated branches there are if you want to see everything. Instead of having just one save for assault, one for corruption and one for romance, you need to branch those out if you want to see how the different branches play out with Bad Guy and Good Guy.

	Ashe	Risa	Nicki	Pepper
Assault	1	2	3	4
Corruption	5	6	7	8
Romance	9	10	11	12

Fortunately, the LIs and scenarios in this one are good enough to make it enjoyable.

 

[Varrilete]

There's a reason I have 17 saves lol.

Only? y have like 30 lol

 

[Maviarab]

Only? y have like 30 lol

Well, knowing some routes are not going to end well lol...and knowing on the dark path there will be a harem of sorts...I have a single route for all Li romances...a couple of potential throuple routes...a single Ashe humiliation route (my fave) and then have done a variety of diff saves combing all the girls with similar paths (humiliation/exploitation/assault etc). I didn't feel the need for more. I did upload my spreadsheet once but can upload it again for anyone interetsed in the paths/saves I have.

 

[Joshy92]

Well, knowing some routes are not going to end well lol...and knowing on the dark path there will be a harem of sorts...I have a single route for all Li romances...a couple of potential throuple routes...a single Ashe humiliation route (my fave) and then have done a variety of diff saves combing all the girls with similar paths (humiliation/exploitation/assault etc). I didn't feel the need for more. I did upload my spreadsheet once but can upload it again for anyone interetsed in the paths/saves I have.

Spreadsheets?

Bro I'm swinging wild and just doing whatever I want.
I'm a fucking badarse alpha chad remember.

 

[robrize2169]

i don't mind harems or multiple LI's as long as there are not too many. oh and no incest for me. though something is odd regarding Guy's sister and the reason he doesn't contact her.

 

[Maviarab]

i don't mind harems or multiple LI's as long as there are not too many. oh and no incest for me. though something is odd regarding Guy's sister and the reason he doesn't contact her.

Psssst...I don't think your sig is big enough

 

[robrize2169]

Psssst...I don't think your sig is big enough

go big sig or go home.

 

[NeonGhosts]

I appreciate everyone's thoughts on the branching. I'm going to do what I can to keep it under control, but the story will continue to change in some interesting ways, based on the decisions you've made.

I also am trying to give opportunities to give players a few chances to find content, so it's not a one-and-done. Pepper's side job is a good example of this. You can discover it in v0.4, or in the new v0.55, for the first time. But, if you discover it in 0.4, you'll get extra options/scenes in 0.55.

Likewise, Ashe and Nicki reveal things to you on their love paths, that you won't know on other paths. Same as Pepper revealing stuff about Trevor when you're nice to her, versus when you're a dick. But, that doesn't mean you might not learn those things later, under different circumstances. But, we're eight installments in now, so I wanted to give players the chance to make choices towards advancing things with their preferred girls. If you're into Ashe over Nicki or vice versa, last chapter kind of allows you to start pushing things firmly in that direction, with this chapter showing the payoff from that.

NeonGhosts Just a heads up, I found a few bugs in the new update (I downloaded from subscribestar). Not sure if anyone else has mentioned these. I didn't see them, but might not have gone back far enough.

First off, some missing images it appears on the Ashe romance path.

Hey! The coding bug's been fixed, and will be corrected for the $5 release. It just causes you to miss a line of contextual dialogue, so you're not missing too much. But, I appreciate you reporting it.

As for the images -- ack, my bad! I order the images in chunks by story section, and the opening scenes were all A, B, C, and D -- so I just removed all the images from the folder, post-D. But, when I'm finishing up a chapter I always do 'pick-up (PU)' images, where I either forgot to add something, decided a scene needed another image, or wrote the scene later, and had to circle back to it. This scene was one of those, so when I removed all the PU(XYZ) images from the teaser, I accidentally deleted those too.

I'm attaching a compressed folder with the missing images inside. Just extract them and toss them into the images folder in your copy of the teaser, and you should be good to go.

 

[Eland51298]

NeonGhosts

Well, that's what I'm missing
From: image '8pu001'
image '8pu002'
image '8pu003'
image '8pu004'
image '8pu005'
To: image '8pu006'

on the non-romance path

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[Bruce F. Lee]

Well, knowing some routes are not going to end well lol...and knowing on the dark path there will be a harem of sorts...I have a single route for all Li romances...a couple of potential throuple routes...a single Ashe humiliation route (my fave) and then have done a variety of diff saves combing all the girls with similar paths (humiliation/exploitation/assault etc). I didn't feel the need for more. I did upload my spreadsheet once but can upload it again for anyone interetsed in the paths/saves I have.

I’m interested in the spreadsheet.

 

[Maviarab]

I’m interested in the spreadsheet.

Not 'fully' updated due to need to redo them all after the next (rework) update..but gives you idea of what paths I have and choices picked etc.

 

[NeonGhosts]

NeonGhosts

Well, that's what I'm missing
From: image '8pu001'
image '8pu002'
image '8pu003'
image '8pu004'
image '8pu005'
To: image '8pu006'

on the non-romance path

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Ack, I'm dumb --

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.

Of note, there will be a little visual gaffe with these. I had a continuity error where Guy got out of bed naked, even though he went to bed in clothes. So, that's fixed in these images, and in the current script. But, because I'm using one image from another scene of Guy and Ashe in the new script, but you have the old script, referring to an old image, he'll basically leave the room naked instead of wearing clothes. Just ignore it.