VN Ren'Py Friends in Need [S1 v0.85c] [NeonGhosts]

[NeonGhosts]

You really overdid it with the 'bruise'. It looks more like gangrene than a bruise. For starters it's a bit too big for a normal black eye and you have this purple extending from it to almost half the face. With something like that you better run to a doctor. This is what a realistically sized black eye would look like:

Spoiler: Black eye

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Maybe! But fresh bruises can look pretty fucking gnarly, especially around the eye where you have a lot of small, delicate blood vessels.

Spoiler: Warning: Nasty Bruises

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My vote is on one bulletproof version with a patch to unlock all the spicy stuff. Two versions seem like less work overall than maintaining three versions. If someone wants the spicy without the dark, just...don't pick dark choices.

The issue is really that Patreon's not keen on distributing a game on their platform, with a means to unlock taboo content. That's why I've always built Friends Indeed in such a way where you really couldn't unlock anything -- you could only completely overwrite all the files, which I can't really do anything to prevent.

This is also why I'd want to release Friends in Need on platforms like SubStar, Itchio, Steam, GOG, etc. with the content removed from the files, but able to be restored via a more comprehensive patch, instead of a toggle. They're more permissive of having one version that complies with their standards, while mostly turning a blind eye to patch content, and it keeps such a build disconnected from Patreon.

The only reason I'm even speculating on making a purely non-smutty version is basically just to widen the audience, and avoid any future problems. For instance: pornographic AVNs are banned from certain regions, like Germany and China. Removing the spice would open those regions up for sale without a VPN. Plus, pornographic AVNs are subjected to a lot more scrutiny on Steam now, and are commonly rejected for Early Access. So if I wanted to serialize Season Two on there, building on any success from Season One, it might be an uphill struggle. And platforms are always changing their rules re: different types of content in the adult space, and selling a version that's limited to topless nudity and fade-to-black scenes would let me sidestep issues like requiring users to submit ID, incoming EU/USA age verification laws, etc.

The issue with that plan is that I'd need to 1) sell a non-spicy version, which immediately removes a large amount of the appeal/potential custoemrs 2) rely on people understanding there's more NSFW content available via a patch, while being restricted from mentioning this fact on a platform like Steam. Given my experience, the second point is a little sticky, and sure to confuse and irritate a lot of people.

So, I don't know. There's no easy answer right now, so I'm content to sit on my hands for a while and letting things develop.

 

[FakeWuxia]

What if you just sold the clean version on steam with a little ad on the main menu. "want to see more of your favorite characters? check out my page here---->" with a link to your page that has the bonus art and the patch available. Your not selling the patch on there or advertising it, it's just available on your page separate. Would that work?

 

[NeonGhosts]

What if you just sold the clean version on steam with a little ad on the main menu. "want to see more of your favorite characters? check out my page here---->" with a link to your page that has the bonus art and the patch available. Your not selling the patch on there or advertising it, it's just available on your page separate. Would that work?

I'm fairly sure Steam doesn't like anything within the game, to link to any kind of website. But I'm pretty sure you can have a store page linked from your Steam page, and typically reviewers will nod towards the existence of a patch.

The thing is, I do think that the game holds up pretty well even without any explicit sexual content. It still plays like a story where you can shape your relationships in different ways, and if it was limited to teasing/topless content that still leaves a llllot of material. So at the very least, I wouldn't need to worry about having the game feel totally gutted.

 

[Elduriel]

The best way to avoid the pitchfork people is to release Friends Indeed on Steam. If you release Friends in Need it can go unnoticed as many other games, but the possibility of another No Mercy shitshow will be always there.
Steam players will seek your other work and eventually became substars to play the raw version anyways.
Maybe I'm biased because the last thing this game development needs is another version for Steam. Things are going slow already with the remake to add more work to the list.

if an unfiltered Friends in Need gets on steam somehow (patch or not), that's gonna be a shitshow eventually. And that's going to drag down Friends Indeed with it, you're absolutely right. And how many versions of the game we're gonna stop at? I personally could do without any of the darker shit, so wouldn't bother me if it wasn't in the game, but I know it has its fans

 

[Ragnar]

if an unfiltered Friends in Need gets on steam somehow (patch or not), that's gonna be a shitshow eventually. And that's going to drag down Friends Indeed with it, you're absolutely right. And how many versions of the game we're gonna stop at? I personally could do without any of the darker shit, so wouldn't bother me if it wasn't in the game, but I know it has its fans

You never know, only a few porn games have become the target of mainstream attention. But right now it would be a bad idea to send them a raw version on FiN because the last fearmongering campaign against porn games is still lingering. Some games we can play here were rejected by Steam mods due to fear of losing the big payment processors.

 

[ename144]

The thing is, I do think that the game holds up pretty well even without any explicit sexual content. It still plays like a story where you can shape your relationships in different ways, and if it was limited to teasing/topless content that still leaves a llllot of material. So at the very least, I wouldn't need to worry about having the game feel totally gutted.

I want to agree, but I'm skeptical of how well the game would hold up without the explicit content, at least as it currently stands. It's true the player can shape their relationships and develop romantic connections just fine at a PG rating, but there's a lot less ability to shape *the MC* when the entire dark half of the spectrum is excised. Why WOULDN'T anyone help the cute girls if there's nothing to be gained by spiting them?

There are obviously cruel things the MC could do that don't go into explicit territory which could serve as an alternative carrot, but the game hasn't done much to set them up. It's put its energy into sexual exploiting them - for obvious reasons. Would the game hit as hard if we were debating between paying Viola's rent or raping her extracting cheap labor out of her? I'm not optimistic. I suppose you could keep things as they are now and just cut to black every time the MC is about to unzip, but I think that's a very risky strategy if you're looking to steer well clear of future censorship - especially if you're also peddling a patch to keep the lights on.

Much as it galls me to say it, your best bet might be re-edit the game again and lean even harder into making Lucien the MC's foil. As a villain he's free to imply all sorts of nasty things (safely offscreen), and the player's choice would be more about whether to leave the girls to his tender mercies or intervene on their behalf and oppose him. If you're feeling daring you could even end the dark path with the MC displacing Lucien and taking over his empire of vaguely-sketched crimes. The contrast would be clear and the white knight path would probably have a similar payoff that way, but I suspect the darker paths would feel rather lackluster when we're only experiencing the villainy vicariously.

I think if you're serious about going after the mainstream audience, you need to sacrifice the original idea of Friends In Need. The distance between that vision and safety is too large to cover with a patch. Personally, I think the payoff isn't worth that price, but then again that's easy for me to say when I'm pirating your game already.

 

[Lightaces]

You really overdid it with the 'bruise'. It looks more like gangrene than a bruise. For starters it's a bit too big for a normal black eye and you have this purple extending from it to almost half the face. With something like that you better run to a doctor. This is what a realistically sized black eye would look like:

Spoiler: Black eye

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Given his day job, I'd bet Neon has seen more black eyes than most of us, and has a pretty good idea what they look like.

 

[Pixillin']

I want to agree, but I'm skeptical of how well the game would hold up without the explicit content, at least as it currently stands. It's true the player can shape their relationships and develop romantic connections just fine at a PG rating, but there's a lot less ability to shape *the MC* when the entire dark half of the spectrum is excised. Why WOULDN'T anyone help the cute girls if there's nothing to be gained by spiting them?

There are obviously cruel things the MC could do that don't go into explicit territory which could serve as an alternative carrot, but the game hasn't done much to set them up. It's put its energy into sexual exploiting them - for obvious reasons. Would the game hit as hard if we were debating between paying Viola's rent or raping her extracting cheap labor out of her? I'm not optimistic. I suppose you could keep things as they are now and just cut to black every time the MC is about to unzip, but I think that's a very risky strategy if you're looking to steer well clear of future censorship - especially if you're also peddling a patch to keep the lights on.

Much as it galls me to say it, your best bet might be re-edit the game again and lean even harder into making Lucien the MC's foil. As a villain he's free to imply all sorts of nasty things (safely offscreen), and the player's choice would be more about whether to leave the girls to his tender mercies or intervene on their behalf and oppose him. If you're feeling daring you could even end the dark path with the MC displacing Lucien and taking over his empire of vaguely-sketched crimes. The contrast would be clear and the white knight path would probably have a similar payoff that way, but I suspect the darker paths would feel rather lackluster when we're only experiencing the villainy vicariously.

I think if you're serious about going after the mainstream audience, you need to sacrifice the original idea of Friends In Need. The distance between that vision and safety is too large to cover with a patch. Personally, I think the payoff isn't worth that price, but then again that's easy for me to say when I'm pirating your game already.

I don't know how you do it. The thing is, the game has so many characters and so many branching paths that everyone has a different reason they play it. Any change is going to piss off a percentage of players. Hell, any chapter that doesn't include everyone is going to irritate some people. But I do think that if you take away the sexual content, then people need a new motivation for taking the 'dark path' - there has to be something in it for them. As ename said, if it's a choice between helping someone in trouble, and adding them as a friend/possible Li and not helping them just to be a dick - then it's not much of a choice.

 

[Dessolos]

I want to agree, but I'm skeptical of how well the game would hold up without the explicit content, at least as it currently stands. It's true the player can shape their relationships and develop romantic connections just fine at a PG rating, but there's a lot less ability to shape *the MC* when the entire dark half of the spectrum is excised. Why WOULDN'T anyone help the cute girls if there's nothing to be gained by spiting them?

i'm probably in the miniority here. While I do enjoy lewd scenes , I also don't care for them either. This isn't a porn game to me , I honestly just like the non sexual interactions with the girls the most. Sure the lewd side of does make it a better game when it involves my favorites. But Honestly I enjoy just regular interaction / conversations more than sex in most AVN's. So this is one I could honestly play without the porn and enjoy. Especially cause the characters are well done. There are only some games I actually play for the porn ( mostly NTR or sharing games) rare for me to care about lewds in other types of games even harems I don't care for lewds very often.

 

[Joshy92]

I have played so many visual novels that don't have sexual content do I'd still buy FiN in a heartbeat even without sex content. I would miss that awesome Ashe scene but I'll get over it. NG could even do a really clean version and put it on plsystation. They have lots of cool visual novels on there and this is better than a lot of those imo.

 

[Jgriz04]

I am here exclusively for the dark content. When/If that goes, my interest also goes.

 

[Gormius]

I am here exclusively for the dark content. When/If that goes, my interest also goes.

Real and also the wincest

 

[lilimcant]

While dark content isn't in my "canon" save, I like having the option. It means more when the choice is there in front of me and I can not choose it than if it's just not there, if that makes sense.

I hope this continues wholly unaltered, or failing that mostly unaltered or with Indeed given as smokescreen to hide In Need, because I want to see the game in its fullest true form. If the creator can continue the "full" version while having the sanitized version up for sale without giving up development of the "Full" version, through a patch or whatever, then cool. If the lewd content starts to end up falling by the wayside in favor of just writing more for the paid sanitized version because that's more money, and why spend time on the lewd at that point, then I'll be rather sad at seeing the loss of it.

 

[Ulysseplus2]

The version with dark content no longer exists?

 

[armond]

The version with dark content no longer exists?

I guess he's really scared of mastercard

 

[JonJones5]

The version with dark content no longer exists?

It does exist

 

[jadepaladin]

The version with dark content no longer exists?

What makes you say this?

 

[Pixillin']

What makes you say this?

If you just read the discussion for the last few days without the long term context (Itch, MasterCard, Steam etc) you could easily get confused.

 

[Maviarab]

What makes you say this?

Dude...I'm really...really trying to behave lately...you're not making it easy!

 

[jadepaladin]

If you just read the discussion for the last few days without the long term context (Itch, MasterCard, Steam etc) you could easily get confused.

Pix what you doing? I post here almost daily.

I genuinely want to know how that other poster can't find the "dark content" despite the fact the Subscribestar version + taboo patch are literally in the OP.