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

[botc76]

Quick FYI to touch on some comments I saw.

Not Enough Sex: No, there's not a ton of sex content in this one. Nicki has two alignment-dependent scenes, Ashe has a short one, Brittani has some teasing, and Pepper has some webcam content. I said this a few times over the last month, and over on my pages, but the original plan was for this to be part of a larger chapter, which would have included three more sex scenes at various points on the light/dark axis, and some big story developments for Gabby. But, I got in the weeds with the update, and would have needed to push the release date back by at least a month, and likely more. Which leads me to my next point..

Too Short: See my comment about getting in the weeds. Basically, my decision to end the last chapter with the player in several very different circumstances (Sleeping alone, sleeping with Nicki, sleeping with Ashe, sleeping with Risa..) along with several other modifiers (Did you know Pepper is a camgirl? Did you know Nicki left? Was Ashe happy with you when she slept over? Is Carolina and Maya happy with you?) just wound up being more work than anticipated. So, an update with almost 900 renders can be played through one time, and you may only see 450 of those.

Do I Need to Wait for the Next Two Official Releases? Not really. The new stuff will come after the events of 0.55, and it's just my attempt to put a nicer bow on the end of the chapter. I'll release that stuff as a patch for people who don't want to re-download the whole update.

Dubya-tee-eff, No More Dark Content? Not really.. Again, this has been a converstion before. I was warning of this even before the last update, and everyone was saying it'd be the death of the game and blah blah blah.. Then the Ashe chapter came out, and I think people realized the truth was more nuanced. My goal has never been to force people into the box of being a good guy. Just that there be realistic consequences for being a bad guy. Consequences =/= punishment, by the way. Learning that Brittani's mom is basically willing to sell her to you is a consequence of being a bad guy, feeding into the dark path. But, so is driving off Nicki, and dealing with the repercussions that come with that. I just want to explore what happens to a Guy who's basically constantly lashing out at the people around him. While he may drive a lot of people away, that doesn't mean everyone will be in a position to leave immediately, and it doesn't mean he might not attract other like-minded people.

Also, to be perfectly blunt, it's never been my intention to write pure misery porn. I've played games that went that route, and I don't think there's any real meat on that bone. I'm trying to make like.. Breaking Bad, not A Serbian Film.

Also, also? Even the vanilla paths for characters will get trimmed a bit, just based on what the story needs. Like, Nicki's around all the time because she's your assistant. How much do we really need to see a Carolina who's been relegated to a friend path? Not much, I'd reckon.

Now, I also think it's worth noting that Not Enough Sex/Too Short are the direct results of me trying to address other critiques I'd previously gotten. People complained that the story wasn't moving fast enough. Okay, now we have scenes advancing the story of Pepper's bruises, your relationship with Nicki, your relationship with Ashe, Brittani's relationship with her mom, the future of your collaboration with Brittani, another glimpse at a place MC's invested in, a look at the downside of fame with being stalked by internet oddballs, a look at Alex's past, the idea that MC's going to learn some self-defense, Maya and Carolina's relationship with MC being dependent on how MC's treated Nicki, the photo mystery having another clue put into place, and more stuff besides. Story movement tends to come at the expense of long sex scenes.

People also dinged me for only presenting the 'illusion of choice.' Well, now the game radically diverges based on what you chose last chapter. But again, that does come at the expense of having one long, mostly linear update.

I'm not putting the blame on people who commented asking for more story/more choices, by the way. Ultimately, I'm the one who made the thing, for good or ill. But, sometimes I like to take these things as a challenge, and use them as inspiration to try new things. It's not always successful!

If I had put this update out as I envisioned it, with sex content for Risa and Mason, and double the renders/story stuff, I feel a lot of these complaints would be moot. But, I've only got so many hours in a day, which I can only devote a few of to game development. So, I made the best thing I could with the time alloted to me, and got it into my paying supporters' hands, because I feel like I owe it to them. I've always said I don't want to be a dev who dithers around for a year or more and then puts out a single update.

I think this is exactly the problem.

In the route i'm playing MC is the nice guy, he's in great relationship with Nikki, he spent the night with Ashe, great relationship with her too, he is in the good guy route with Brittani, all perfectly lecit choices, but having choosed the reception brat at the end of last chapter i got exactly 0 content.

Just the dumb influencers, a chat with Brittani slut mother (and barely any interaction with Brittani, sure none sexy), and not even anithing to do with Pepper in cam.

Zero content.

I think the game it's cutting out the player too early for perfectly reasonable and lecit choice and this can derail the experience midgame. I've seen it happen to other games, that started well and ended very lame with basically a couple of hours of click forward with nothing happening and then a 'very satisfing' bad ending. Maybe because you chosed the route of a girl who's plot has been sidelined (an nothing suggester you shouldn't have had) or because you choiced to gift a girl chocolate instead of flowers early in the game again with no indication of that being the wrong choice.

With a much branching game like yours, Neon Ghost (which by the way is a great thing) you need to be able to recover interactions later in the game, or be in some solid route that happens even if your go through sideroads.

If some early choice close entire routes and the player is left with nothing to do the experience turn frustrating very quick.

Mine is not a critic, it's a concerned feedback having just had a not so good gaming experience (again with choices by no mean terrible).

I think Machete makes a valid point, because this is what the experience can be like and tbh, not through any fault of your own. You are just doing your best to create the best game you can.
My advice isn't to disregard constructive criticism or what people say they would enjoy more, but there has to be a compromise between offering significant decisions and opening up so many paths that you are killing yourself fitting them all into the game.

One thing I would always advise in this regard is to take a look at what many japanese VNs do (let's face it, they've created the genre and have decades more experience with it) and restrict the branching paths severely up to a point, so that you don't have to create several completely different routes, but instead it mostly comes down to some players seeing one scene and missing another (but again, still restricted in scope, it shouldn't go so far as to people seriously missing out on content in a new update).
In one sentence, avoid the paths diverging too much until a point relatively late in the game. Personally, I don't even get why you would listen to people complaining about choices not really making a difference. I happen to like your game because they do. In one of my first posts in this thread I mentioned how impressed I was with how you managed to use the same images to write three completely different paths. This is the strength of this game, your writing and characterization. Don't write yourself into corners that severely limit your ability to progress, without restricting the access to content on some routes. Whoever asked for something like that, can't be the majority.

And I'm not telling you how to write your game, hell, you do it so much better than I ever could, but the wise thing to do would have been NOT to let the previous update end in so many different ways, but instead move the paths back together at the end.
I think most people understand the restrictions of branching paths, you can't have a large number of diverging paths AND have a speedy development AND still experience most content. It's just not possible, and it leads to games either going at a snail's pace or a drastic cutback in pathing.
I don't know if you are a fan of "Where The Heart Is" and that game sure has its detractors as well, but that was a thing that Cheekygimp was really good at, limiting the pathing options for a long time (mostly to whether you are going after a specific girl or not, so that the path would just be missing specific scenes with specific girls) and always finding a way to cut back on them, to keep the branches manageable by leading them back together at certain points.
What you describe seems to me as if you took the branching a bit too far for both your workload and game development.
I'm not suggesting an illusion of choice, but I am definitely advocating a limitation of the branches that the decisions lead to.

You probably know all of this already, but maybe you lost a bit track of it, and maybe it is also good to read that someone is willing to accept certain limitations for the sake of your sanity and that being able to experience most content seems to be what most people want in the end, compared to vastly diverging paths pretty early on in the game.
I think most people playing these games realize the limitations of branching paths and how easy they become hard to manage.

 

[Machete]

I think you're wrong, the update was very content rich and I'm still amazed by the reactivity in this story, the choices you make actually matter and have consequences/payoffs.

I agree that it's a good thing that the story branches and gives meaning to your choices. The problem is if the choices (lecit choices) take you to a dead end mid game.

Allow me an example.

Let's say an hypotetical game has 12 chapters and 5 girls to pursuite.
At chapter 2 you may chose to give a ride to girl A or see the concert of girl B, you choose the latter and it closes route A
At chapter 3 you chose to be nice to girl C instead of being a jerk. Being a jerk was the 'right choice' (awful concept), the route seems to go on but it closes by chapter 4, you can't do anything to recover.
At chapter 5 the route of girl C closes because you flirted with girl A in chapter 1 (and girl A route is closed by now)
At chapter 6 you decide to go in the threesome scene that girl D and E are begging you to do since chapter 2. But if you go for it they are pissed (plot twist!) and it closes both routes. If you don't and route C is closed girl E is pissed ant the route closes.
Still at chapter 6 route D closes because you have been nice to girl C in chapter 3.

In chapter 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 all MC has to do is he wake up for the morning, go through some general chatting scene with secondary character or direcly back to bed again, and then the game ends after 2-3 more hour of no content with a bad ending.

It's an extrame example but it happened to me in a game.

Can we agree that such a gaming experience sucks? And maybe the story was even good and the first 6 chapters were a lot of fun, but the overal game economy has been mismanaged.

All i'm saying (and recommending to NeonGhost) is to pay much attention that the 'conseguences' of choices don't lead to excessuve dead ends.

Can it happen to Friends in Need? It is very possible

It's more or less already happened to me in this last chapter and NeonGhosts is speaking of character leaving the story due to dark choices. It's a risky strategy. Having character leaving if they are mistreated is very logical storywise, but we must take in account 2 things:

1) After some characters leave, what's left to play?
2) Dark path is something you CAN choose in the game. Yet it leads to early bad endings? Then it is not a choice. It's play nice = win the game, play jerk = lose the game. So it's no choice at all to begin with.

And mine, i repeat, are not critics for the sake of it. Mine are recommendations to NeonGhost to keep his project on a virtous path.

I'm not saying he has to do as i say. But if i'm making any valid point here, he should at last consider the implications they have.

 

[Ragnar]

The update can feel short depending on your choices. The game has many path permutations that you can only see if you do this or that. In example, if you go to Nicks and she's your sub you can get a couple of sex scenes.

 

[Ottoeight]

Well, you know, today I've just started counting the days that separate us from the moment when we find out that Neonghosts has become just another F95 Deleted Member, just like 99,999999% devs did.

 

[Machete]

The update can feel short depending on your choices. The game has many path permutations that you can only see if you do this or that. In example, if you go to Nicks and she's your sub you can get a couple of sex scenes.

My point exactly. And it's not about sex scenes. It's about having some game to play Anyway, sure not too late for a course correction eventually.

 

[Ragnar]

My point exactly. And it's not about sex scenes. It's about having some game to play Anyway, sure not too late for a course correction eventually.

The game is great how it is, it doesn't need changes imo. Basically there are three paths:
- Dark, fast and nasty. Expect dead ends with the girls or worse.
- Corruption, this is the middle ground. Sort of use the girls but give them something so they stay around.
- Romantic, fee fees talks and walks in the park

Everyone should know by now how the western vn scene works. There are two types of devs, big updates one time a year or shorter ones every 2 or 3 months, Neon is the later. Players can wait until the game is finished or wait a few updates before playing again if they think updates are short.

Anyway, NeonGhost is doing great for a new dev imo.

 

[Machete]

- Dark, fast and nasty. Expect dead ends with the girls or worse.

If dark path implies bad ending it's no choice, as i pointed earlie. It's a wrong path that makes you 'lose the game'. If dark path is something you are supposed to be able to follow, of course you can't get to a super happy ending, but at last the story should go somewhere that gives the player some payoff.

This is just how writing stories work.

But even if you want to write the bitter story of a man on a self destructive path that is going to end bad, it is still supposed to end, you know... by the end of the story. Not 2/3 of its run.

It's kinda like if in (the original) Star Wars Luke died in the Cloud City fighting with Darth Vader and the third movie was a serie of disjointed short stories of how the rest of the characters die of age in poverty hiddend somewhere on the outer fringe of the Empire.

But even this way it's a passable story. It's more like the rebels all go home and, like, sit down and start reading a newspaper or take naps for 2 hours.

 

[armond]

If dark path implies bad ending it's no choice, as i pointed earlie. It's a wrong path that makes you 'lose the game'. If dark path is something you are supposed to be able to follow, of course you can't get to a super happy ending, but at last the story should go somewhere that gives the player some payoff.

This is just how writing stories work.

But even if you want to write the bitter story of a man on a self destructive path that is going to end bad, it is still supposed to end, you know... by the end of the story. Not 2/3 of its run.

It's kinda like if in (the original) Star Wars Luke died in the Cloud City fighting with Darth Vader and the third movie was a serie of disjointed short stories of how the rest of the characters die of age in poverty hiddend somewhere on the outer fringe of the Empire.

But even this way it's a passable story. It's more like the rebels all go home and, like, sit down and start reading a newspaper or take naps for 2 hours.

We've all played the type of VN you're describing where there are two choices and the other is a game over (waifu academy is a great example) FIN is very obviously not the type of game you are describing. It's a non linear story where decision matters and you have to actually think as a player as opposed to clicking through text until a false decision is presented. You can play every path, starting a new game and skipping text you have already read is a option, even if you're too busy somehow, like you complain, the updates are short so it shouldn't be an issue.

 

[botc76]

Well, you know, today I've just started counting the days that separate us from the moment when we find out that Neonghosts has become just another F95 Deleted Member, just like 99,999999% devs did.

Lol. Neither has there been any really nasty criticism (that I've seen, it could be the mods were just so fast and did it so meticuously that I missed all of it) nor does Neon strike me as the type of dev that gets discouraged by that. He seems to have a well-balanced head on his shoulders.

There is also a huge difference between people not particularly liking something and voicing their criticism about it, and about people who come into every single thread of these forums trying to force devs to change their vision of the game.
The difference being one group says "hey, I didn't like this and that, because of that and this, and maybe you could consider checking if this couldn't be done differently to better the game and everyone's experience." while the other one is more like.
"I don't like this! This is XXX! Two years ago when this game started, you wrote you don't think you would go and do this or that, and I took that as a solemn promise on your part, therefore you are now a liar and a cheat, because something that I consider to be the one thing you promised you wouldn't do, just happened! Now your game is shit, you are shit and if you don't retract the thing I didn't like, my friends and I will harass and insult you on a regular basis until you do."

And in my experience, it is the later that leads to a lot of devs giving up, not the regular criticism that is to be expected in any creative endeavour.
You have to be realistic with this, as a dev, if you go and put your creative work out there, you will always get criticism and not all of it will be fair or be rational or constructive, that's just how it is.
When a dev gives up just due to that, then sadly they were not cut out to be a creator of any kind.
You have to be able to deal with that, as much as with the praise (and mind you, there are also tons of devs who can't deal with praise, surrounding themselves with nothing but an echo chamber that happily helps them to run their project against a wall and killing it creatively, this can be just as dangerous as the other way around).


I love this game and one thing I can say for sure that even if something happens I might not like, I trust Neonghost to still turn it into a great story. Not everything has to be exactly to my liking, as long as overall the game hits the right strides.
This is one game that will definitely see some money from me one way or the other, whether I buy it once it hits Steam or GOG or support the patreon for some time. It's one of the really exceptionally well done VNs on this forum.

 

[52637]

Machete I don't wanna be "that guy", but I noticed several times you write "lecit" when you mean "legit", as in legitimate. There's no C.

I guess it's not your main language, sorry if I offend.

 

[Ottoeight]

The game is great how it is, it doesn't need changes imo. Basically there are three paths:
- Dark, fast and nasty. Expect dead ends with the girls or worse.
- Corruption, this is the middle ground. Sort of use the girls but give them something so they stay around.
- Romantic, fee fees talks and walks in the park

Everyone should know by now how the western vn scene works. There are two types of devs, big updates one time a year or shorter ones every 2 or 3 months, Neon is the later. Players can wait until the game is finished or wait a few updates before playing again if they think updates are short.

Anyway, NeonGhost is doing great for a new dev imo.

I think we might add a "just friends path".

 

[Machete]

FIN is very obviously not the type of game you are describing. It's a non linear story where decision matters and you have to actually think as a player as opposed to clicking through text until a false decision is presented.

I totally agree. As i mentioned i think in my first post on the topic, i think Friends is Need might very likely be my favored game on this site. And i was very much looking forward for this release. But i've seen red flags in this last release and therefore i wanted to provide a strong feedback. Not because i'm pissed and i wanted to complain but because i feel protective toward a project i strongly appreciate and respect.

My point was to say "Hey NeonGhost, i know you are doing a very honest and entusiastic job here, but i think you might be heading to this counterproductive direction and those might be the consequencies on the quality of the game".

That's why they call them feedbacks, because they are meant to spot existing or potential problems in order to correct them when it's still possible.

Machete I don't wanna be "that guy", but I noticed several times you write "lecit" when you mean "legit", as in legitimate. There's no C.

I guess it's not your main language, sorry if I offend.

Be my guest being that guy I know i make a shitload of typos and genuine errors. While i'm very familiar with english i have very little chances to 'produce english' by writing or speaking it. And i very seldom doublecheck what i write, lazy me. And sometimes also i honestly think that some word is spelled in a way while it's actually another. I tend to italianize english a lot.

 

[depeche mode]

britanni, ashe risa harem when

 

[CrazyRabbit]

I didn't follow all the (unwarranted I'm sure) drama this update triggered and my search was ambiguous so if I understood completely :

We got the next update but only for the vanilla version. And it'll come next on the "classic" version ?
Or should I just play the vanilla one ? Does it take up where we left off ? (I have no dark path taken anyway)

 

[soprano31]

(I have no dark path taken anyway)

 

[armond]

I didn't follow all the (unwarranted I'm sure) drama this update triggered and my search was ambiguous so if I understood completely :

We got the next update but only for the vanilla version. And it'll come next on the "classic" version ?
Or should I just play the vanilla one ? Does it take up where we left off ? (I have no dark path taken anyway)

Nikki cut off guys hand and revealed she's his father, woops, spoilers. As I'm sure you can surmise, this was a little devisive.

 

[CrazyRabbit]

View attachment 3223770

Have you no what now ?

Nikki cut off guys hand and revealed she's his father, woops, spoilers. As I'm sure you can surmise, this was a little devisive.

Oh, a classic Monday morning for MC then ?

 

[Mesmerizet]

I think this is exactly the problem.

In the route i'm playing MC is the nice guy, he's in great relationship with Nikki, he spent the night with Ashe, great relationship with her too, he is in the good guy route with Brittani, all perfectly lecit choices, but having choosed the reception brat at the end of last chapter i got exactly 0 content.

Just the dumb influencers, a chat with Brittani slut mother (and barely any interaction with Brittani, sure none sexy), and not even anithing to do with Pepper in cam.

Zero content.

I think the game it's cutting out the player too early for perfectly reasonable and lecit choice and this can derail the experience midgame. I've seen it happen to other games, that started well and ended very lame with basically a couple of hours of click forward with nothing happening and then a 'very satisfing' bad ending. Maybe because you chosed the route of a girl who's plot has been sidelined (an nothing suggester you shouldn't have had) or because you choiced to gift a girl chocolate instead of flowers early in the game again with no indication of that being the wrong choice.

With a much branching game like yours, Neon Ghost (which by the way is a great thing) you need to be able to recover interactions later in the game, or be in some solid route that happens even if your go through sideroads.

If some early choice close entire routes and the player is left with nothing to do the experience turn frustrating very quick.

Mine is not a critic, it's a concerned feedback having just had a not so good gaming experience (again with choices by no mean terrible).

Well I chose Risa too, and I have to say that Risa would be worth it (future scenes hopefully haha)

 

[Dr.Slime]

Quick FYI to touch on some comments I saw.

Not Enough Sex: No, there's not a ton of sex content in this one. Nicki has two alignment-dependent scenes, Ashe has a short one, Brittani has some teasing, and Pepper has some webcam content. I said this a few times over the last month, and over on my pages, but the original plan was for this to be part of a larger chapter, which would have included three more sex scenes at various points on the light/dark axis, and some big story developments for Gabby. But, I got in the weeds with the update, and would have needed to push the release date back by at least a month, and likely more. Which leads me to my next point..

Too Short: See my comment about getting in the weeds. Basically, my decision to end the last chapter with the player in several very different circumstances (Sleeping alone, sleeping with Nicki, sleeping with Ashe, sleeping with Risa..) along with several other modifiers (Did you know Pepper is a camgirl? Did you know Nicki left? Was Ashe happy with you when she slept over? Is Carolina and Maya happy with you?) just wound up being more work than anticipated. So, an update with almost 900 renders can be played through one time, and you may only see 450 of those.

Do I Need to Wait for the Next Two Official Releases? Not really. The new stuff will come after the events of 0.55, and it's just my attempt to put a nicer bow on the end of the chapter. I'll release that stuff as a patch for people who don't want to re-download the whole update.

Dubya-tee-eff, No More Dark Content? Not really.. Again, this has been a converstion before. I was warning of this even before the last update, and everyone was saying it'd be the death of the game and blah blah blah.. Then the Ashe chapter came out, and I think people realized the truth was more nuanced. My goal has never been to force people into the box of being a good guy. Just that there be realistic consequences for being a bad guy. Consequences =/= punishment, by the way. Learning that Brittani's mom is basically willing to sell her to you is a consequence of being a bad guy, feeding into the dark path. But, so is driving off Nicki, and dealing with the repercussions that come with that. I just want to explore what happens to a Guy who's basically constantly lashing out at the people around him. While he may drive a lot of people away, that doesn't mean everyone will be in a position to leave immediately, and it doesn't mean he might not attract other like-minded people.

Also, to be perfectly blunt, it's never been my intention to write pure misery porn. I've played games that went that route, and I don't think there's any real meat on that bone. I'm trying to make like.. Breaking Bad, not A Serbian Film.

Also, also? Even the vanilla paths for characters will get trimmed a bit, just based on what the story needs. Like, Nicki's around all the time because she's your assistant. How much do we really need to see a Carolina who's been relegated to a friend path? Not much, I'd reckon.

Now, I also think it's worth noting that Not Enough Sex/Too Short are the direct results of me trying to address other critiques I'd previously gotten. People complained that the story wasn't moving fast enough. Okay, now we have scenes advancing the story of Pepper's bruises, your relationship with Nicki, your relationship with Ashe, Brittani's relationship with her mom, the future of your collaboration with Brittani, another glimpse at a place MC's invested in, a look at the downside of fame with being stalked by internet oddballs, a look at Alex's past, the idea that MC's going to learn some self-defense, Maya and Carolina's relationship with MC being dependent on how MC's treated Nicki, the photo mystery having another clue put into place, and more stuff besides. Story movement tends to come at the expense of long sex scenes.

People also dinged me for only presenting the 'illusion of choice.' Well, now the game radically diverges based on what you chose last chapter. But again, that does come at the expense of having one long, mostly linear update.

I'm not putting the blame on people who commented asking for more story/more choices, by the way. Ultimately, I'm the one who made the thing, for good or ill. But, sometimes I like to take these things as a challenge, and use them as inspiration to try new things. It's not always successful!

If I had put this update out as I envisioned it, with sex content for Risa and Mason, and double the renders/story stuff, I feel a lot of these complaints would be moot. But, I've only got so many hours in a day, which I can only devote a few of to game development. So, I made the best thing I could with the time alloted to me, and got it into my paying supporters' hands, because I feel like I owe it to them. I've always said I don't want to be a dev who dithers around for a year or more and then puts out a single update.

Do you man for my end i asked about nsfw scenes just so i know the update Is indeed or in need version, but now that i know.
Also ditching scenes for Story wise i'm 100% with you on this , like the people before said it's Adult visual novel that has some lewd scenes on it not the opposite .
So good work i didn't have yet time to play it but keep it up.

 

[armond]

View attachment 3223770

The fault was not mine, pervert-kun must answer