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

[Varrilete]

Please can someone shrink the talk ?

ask chatgpt to summarize
I have nothing better to do so:

Part1

1. Protagonist-Challenge Balance:
   • In storytelling, it’s essential for the protagonist’s abilities and the challenges they face to be balanced. Overqualified heroes or trivial challenges can weaken the narrative.
   • Young writers sometimes make their heroes too powerful or remove all challenges (even in adult games).
   • A common pitfall is having a hero who excels in every aspect (e.g., a hunk, schemer, silver-tongued, well-endowed) facing minor opposition (such as college bullies).
2. Subverting Expectations:
   • Subverting expectations can create memorable moments. For example, imagine a detective searching for a missing person who unexpectedly confronts a demented serial killer.
   • The twist: The detective is an honest-to-God vampire, immune to bullets and possessing superpowers.
   • This subverts the thriller genre, turning a tense situation into comically tragic irony.
3. Echoing Hero and Challenge:
   • Hero and challenge should echo each other on some level.
   • In “Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines,” the vampire and serial killer both prey on the unsuspecting, creating a parallel dynamic.
4. Guy in “FiN”:
   • Guy, an average guy, wins the lottery and faces the challenge of having friends in need.
   • He can’t directly fix their problems but can provide financial support.
   • The story focuses on the girls, aligning with the game’s premise.
5. Dissonance and Character Variation:
   • Guy’s character varies (Good Guy vs. Bad Guy), affecting what’s reasonable for him.
   • Threats differ based on character alignment, leading to dissonance in choices with girls.

Part2

1. Seras Victoria in “Hellsing”:
   • Seras Victoria, an everyman character, works well as the protagonist in “Hellsing.”
   • Challenges introduced to her are a power-level challenge.
   • Despite her vampiric condition, she remains relatable due to deep-set traumas from her past.
   • The story avoids divorcing her from the world by maintaining a relationship between plot and hero.
2. Guy in “FiN”:
   • Some players are frustrated with Guy’s chronic unpreparedness and laid-back attitude.
   • The story’s threat level has increased, introducing criminals and dangerous situations.
   • Guy lacks the buried darkness or dangerous spark that would tie him more closely to the evolving plot.
   • Real people react differently to danger, and some players find Guy’s reactions infuriating.
   • The story calls for an echo of danger within Guy, but if it remains absent, he may seem lacking.

Feel free to ask if you’d like further elaboration or have additional thoughts!

 

[Maviarab]

Please can someone shrink the talk ?

You're on a forum. Wrong place to be kid if you don't want to read shit

Jus' sayin'.

 

[Varrilete]

You're on a forum. Wrong place to be kid if you don't want to read shit

Jus' sayin'.

I dont agree, one thing is to read 2, 3 paragraphs and other is 80

 

[yossa999]

Please can someone shrink the talk ?

The text discusses the importance of having a protagonist and challenge on a similar level in a story, using examples from various games and characters. It highlights how the protagonist's background and personality should echo the challenges they face in order to create a compelling narrative. The text then applies this idea to the game FiN, where some players are frustrated with the protagonist Guy's lack of preparedness and apparent lack of darkness within his character as the story escalates in threat level. The lack of a dangerous spark within Guy's character is leaving some players feeling disconnected from the story and wanting more depth from the protagonist.

 

[atrebor68]

You're on a forum. Wrong place to be kid if you don't want to read shit

Jus' sayin'.

Good communication involves short and meaningful phrases:

In a story, it’s important that the protagonist and the challenge they face are on a similar level. Often, young writers make the mistake of making their hero overqualified for the challenge or even removing any difficulty altogether. For example, an attractive and skilled protagonist dealing with college bullies and flirting with girls might be unconvincing. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with this dynamic.

Imagine our hero searching for a missing person, picking up clues in a creepy environment. Suddenly, they come face to face with a demented serial killer who has lured them into an underground lair. But here’s the twist: our “hero” is an immortal vampire, nearly immune to bullets and possessing superpowers. This completely changes the scene, turning what would be a nail-biting thriller for a regular detective into something comically tragic. It also plays off dramatic irony: we, the players, know we’re dealing with a vampire, yet the horror elements still work on us because in real life, we’re just normal humans. This subverts expectations and turns the whole situation into a darkly humorous farce. While this approach might work well early in the story, it wouldn’t sustain the entire narrative.

 

[atrebor68]

The text discusses the importance of having a protagonist and challenge on a similar level in a story, using examples from various games and characters. It highlights how the protagonist's background and personality should echo the challenges they face in order to create a compelling narrative. The text then applies this idea to the game FiN, where some players are frustrated with the protagonist Guy's lack of preparedness and apparent lack of darkness within his character as the story escalates in threat level. The lack of a dangerous spark within Guy's character is leaving some players feeling disconnected from the story and wanting more depth from the protagonist.

Thanks a lot, kind gesture.

 

[Maviarab]

Good communication involves short and meaningful phrases:

According to who exactly? Are these the interfuckingnational rules and laws of communication you're referring to?

Thanks a lot, kind gesture.

Yossa is the good cop

 

[yossa999]

Thanks a lot, kind gesture.

Damn, now I feel like a jerk
Sorry bro, I pranked you a bit, it was actually an AI generated answer, but quite a good and sharp summary to be honest.

According to who exactly? Are these the interfuckingnational rules and laws of communication you're referring to?

Yossa is the good cop

Don't rub salt in my wound, bro

 

[atrebor68]

Damn, now I feel like a jerk
Sorry bro, I pranked you a bit, it was actually an AI generated answer, but quite a good and sharp summary to be honest.

Don't rub salt in my wound, bro

LOL, mine too

 

[Ragnar]

I understand, and I try to take this stuff in stride. But, most of this stuff doesn't feel like engagement with the story. Like, this chapter gave people some interesting stuff (I think) to speculate on, and theorize on. Cherry, Lucien, Pepper, Markus, Carl, Trevor, Kara.. There's stuff there to interrogate and question character motives and such.

But instead, people want to nit-pick about why I didn't write an entirely different story. It feels like the Cinema Sins brand of media engagement, where people just want to, "Gotcha!" the author.



This is really the thing. Like.. I've been doing this shit for two years now, and still every decision I make gets second-guessed, and people demand detailed responses to explain myself. Should I just spoil the next several chapters? Oh, but then my explanations wouldn't actually cover every single path and iteration of the game, so people would still nitpick little details left unexplained.

Like, someone was questioning, several pages back, why I'd suddenly introduce Lucien in Chapter 8. Rewind to Ashe's short story, and oh hey, I actually set up him, and his motivation, in June of 2023! Shit, it's like I actually consider some of this stuff!

Or hey! Remember when Guy was talking to Maya like four chapters ago, and he explained a good guy is only as good as their bad guy? Shit, maybe I was foreshadowing something! Who can say!

I'm not saying it's perfect. The game's a work-in-progress, and sometimes I make errors and need to back up and nudge dialogue or events back into place. But, a lot of the stuff people want to pick at, is just stuff that hasn't been explained yet.



Criminal elements have been a part of the game since literally Chapter One. Like, literally the very first installment of the game, when Nicki hinted towards a predatory loanshark bothering her and Brent. I could sit here and explain how every girl's plotline brushes up against drugs and coercive sex work, but I'll spare myself.



I appreciate the thought you put into this comment, but I can't hit every point. So, I'll take the broad strokes. I think Guy has shown, over the course of the story, to be a little bit of a man-of-action. It depends on how people want to play him, but he's a bit of a risk-taker that'll go shadow a famous photographer on a lark. He'll walk down dark alleys. He'll confront people like Markus, Jamie, or Erik that he views as bullying people or disrespecting him. In this chapter, we see him get a gun shoved in his face, and he doesn't have a strong reaction to it. I don't think he's entirely unprepared for challenges.

Now, to speak broadly to the idea that this current challenge is at odds with the overall tone of the story, or Guy's ability to meet it.. I've never been shy about taking a lot of inspiration from comic books. One thing about comics, is that they tend to give the hero challenges that are strongly correlated to their expertise.

This is a world where sex, money, desperation, and exploitation is the main focal point. So, why would our hero not have an enemy whose main trade is sexually exploiting desperate people for money?

I said before that Lucien is a great character, also the story needs bad guys of course. We're helping people through tough shit not with their laundry.
I think some people don't like Lucien for the same reason they don't like Nikki. Lucien fucks girls and having anyone but the MC fucking anyone in avns is a big no no for some. Same goes for "impure" girls.
Just remember that you can't please everyone. At the end of the day this is your story and you should write it your way.

 

[Ottoeight]

In terms of story and dialogues this is one of the best F95 VNs by far. BY FAR.

And yet some people have the nerve to come and start lecturing the Author about how he's supposed to write his work.

This is fucking crazy. Totally insane.


My only real concern about this game is that it has too many main girls. The scope of this project is way too wide.

 

[Anteron]

Who lied to you about this being a porn game?
It's an AVN which is mean = Adult Visual Novel.
Means it's a game that has an adult aspect to it, could be blackmail ,rape kidnap , killing , porn or anything in between .

Yeah, other than porn and rape, that's like the vast majority of games not for children out there. No porn AVNs would totally suck. And wouldn't belong here. No games like GTA and such here or similar sites, unless a porn parody version.

 

[Machete]

Yeah, other than porn and rape, that's like the vast majority of games not for children out there. No porn AVNs would totally suck. And wouldn't belong here. No games like GTA and such here or similar sites, unless a porn parody version.

There are a bunch of games around here with no porn content.

 

[enzo ferrari]

In terms of story and dialogues this is one of the best F95 VNs by far. BY FAR.

And yet some people have the nerve to come and start lecturing the Author about how he's supposed to write his work.

This is fucking crazy. Totally insane.


My only real concern about this game is that it has too many main girls. The scope of this project is way too wide.

The writing in this game Is shit lmao.

 

[KiryuKazuma095]

Yeah, other than porn and rape, that's like the vast majority of games not for children out there. No porn AVNs would totally suck. And wouldn't belong here. No games like GTA and such here or similar sites, unless a porn parody version.

Well there are many good AVN games that have great story and don't only focus on the MC fucking every female character he encounters...

 

[Machete]

The writing in this game Is shit lmao.

care to articulate?

 

[enzo ferrari]

care to articulate?

the fact that the dev will remake the first chapters to explain better the entire nicki storyine and add some semlance of a character to the mc? or the fact that every single bad thing revolves about sexual abuse coercion?

 

[Anteron]

Well there are many good AVN games that have great story and don't only focus on the MC fucking every female character he encounters...

True, but without ANY porn if they are here, they're going to piss a lot of people off. There are a couple where the dev obviously HATES sex, like AWAM, but most do indeed have sex scenes. I mean, this one obvious has them, it just has some content lots of people don't like, but it sounds like it should be avoidable.

 

[Dessolos]

The writing in this game Is shit lmao.

That's your own personal opinion. I'm of the opinion the writing of the stories of Nicki , Ashe ( maybe Risa need to play the update) are above average and better than alot of other LI ive encounter in many other AVN's. Now this is from a light path pov. I don't like the dark path really much at all, that's where the writing shows it's cracks to me and starts to make less sense and is clearly about a fantasy for the players to enjoy and less so about a story

 

[PHIL101-YYouPPHard]

I also pretend I'm the mc when playing these games. That might be why I don't want to rape the girls or stuff like that because I wouldn't do it in real life.

I tend to play from my own first person too, for the most part. Well, it would be way less complicated and more freeing if I were more like you, tho I could share without having to worry about the ol' "ummm, are you an actual fucking psychopath?" card

For me personally, I'd be lying if I said the dark or corruption routes weren't expressions of power fantasies for me. I have a hard time imagining what else they could possibly be, really, in a porn VN. And the writing of the LIs can definitely make them feel real, adds tons more layers to the choices. But, I also can't help but be fully aware that they're not real. And that's the switch that kicks it into motion for me, I guess.

I cringe at a few things for sure, especially as the story progresses and I get more and more attached to the characters. But I don't particularly feel bad, bad or anything when I make an evil choice. But I totally understand people who do. I think they're both perfectly normal responses, just slightly different brain software running.

Well reasoned out. And bonus points for referring to Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, my favourite game of all time.

In my view, up until the drug den update the game has mostly been a slice of life. Even with the dark path it's been fairly laid-back and chill, mostly focussed on MC and the girls. Mostly it's been a case of x girl has external problem y and MC can choose to help z1 or take advantage z2, with some variations inbetween. But now it's been put into a crime thriller with antagonists which seem incompatable with the previous formula. Risa doesn't have a problem MC can choose to fix, she has given him a problem. Even if the problem becomes something that can be wrapped up reasonably quickly (in the sense of a few chapters of story, not actual time) you can't go back. The tone and feeling of the AVN is different now.

I can see where you're coming from, but can't plenty of story setups feel like slice-of-life really? Up until certain plot elements start to come into the forefront, I mean. From a story perspective, you have to give proper background to the pieces that will be in play, characters etc., or it's difficult for the player to give a shit or even understand what's happening. From a porn perspective (which tbh is the primary lens I view it from), the various LIs are kind of.. "making their case", so to speak, for the player to choose them; what's interesting about them, what kind of sex are they into, what can the MC give to them to make them happy, and so on.

EDIT: btw guys, careful not to feed the obvious trolls lol not talking about the ppl I'm responding to, but there's at least one around here that isn't even trying to hide it. just let them cry into silence like they deserve