VN Ren'Py Friends in Need [S1 v0.95b] [NeonGhosts]

[Joshy92]

NG man, is there a chance we could get a picture of that 'pocket mason' by itself? I really like it and would love to save it to my collection.

 

[ffive]

She's a high end escort he sees from time to time, when he's feeling lonely. As he is here. So far, she doesn't really have much story impact, but she certainly has a window into the part of the world Guy is kinda investigating, in terms of rich men taking advantage of young women.

Question, does she appear in the new season no matter what, or does it require Guy to pick the option to fuck her in S1? Because the "he sees her from time to time when feeling lonely" is not exactly a given, and for a number of players would be basically thrown at them out of a blue and without any input on their part.

 

[ruby_rubicon]

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Dev Update! 1/6/26​

Hey, folks! Hope you’re all doing well, today! Sorry to get this up a day late, but as usual I was in rendering mode and didn’t want to take a break to write this post. Apologies!

Things are still moving with the new chapter. I finished Gabby’s friend route, which includes an optional spicy scene.. Next up is finishing the love route scene, which I started a few weeks ago before getting side-tracked with the release of Season 1, the Season 2 teaser, getting the flu, etc. Once that’s done, and I’ve completed the coding I still need to do, knock out any ‘pick-up’ images I still need, and put out the new alpha. Until then, enjoy the many flavors of Mason available in this update – plus Gabby! The image count continues to climb, and my mental state continues to deteriorate.

(Jokes! Well, kinda..)

In general dev news, I had one supporter reach out and inform me that the save migration feature isn’t working for their Steam Deck. I’ll admit, this isn’t a platform I’d thought about when rolling out the function, so I’ll need to look into it. I suspect the fault lies with the fact that I don’t build a Linux-specific build, though I didn’t think it would really matter.. But it could also be the fact that I initially mislabeled the value needed to export the saves, and didn’t get it corrected right away. So some people built their save exports with a buggy version, and didn’t realize it until they tried to export them and couldn’t find them. Like I said, I’ll need to do some investigating.

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Finally, I decided to distract myself a bit from the (at this point) exhausting work of rendering, and play around with an idea suggested by a longtime supporter – a Mason management sim! No, I didn’t actually make it. I just mocked up some art, ran it through some color-reduction and pixelizer web apps, and slapped the image on the Playdate console. I’ve previously joked around about how much I’d like to do a throwback eroge for a niche platform like the Playdate. While I certainly don’t have the time to do it now, it remains a distant dream. Maybe when things slow down, and I finish edits for my novel, I’ll carve out a little time for it.

That’s it for me, today! Hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year. Until next time, take care of yourselves – and thank you for your support!

Wow, so many Indigo combos. Are the blonde and purple haired women someone we know?

 

[Lightaces]

Wow, so many Indigo combos. Are the blonde and purple haired women someone we know?

His name is Mason. He is a bit of a chameleon!

 

[NeonGhosts]

 

[NeonGhosts]

NG man, is there a chance we could get a picture of that 'pocket mason' by itself? I really like it and would love to save it to my collection.

Standard disclaimer that this is AI, but.. Enjoy!

i had no idea you worked with the dev or regional manager. i used to really like that game, just like i like your game, despite the appalling, willfully negligent, lack of brittani content. any chance you would ever consider continuing the game, with the original dev's permission of course. not like a full remake, as that would take way too long, but like making a chapter 2 where the old one left off.

Nahhh, as much as I love that game, I think that what made it so fun was the dev's unique perspective. Horizontical had a certain exaggerated quality to his dialogue, expressions, body language, etc. that was very uniquely his. I don't think I'd be able to recreate it. But, I tried to infuse into FiN parts from various AVNs that I liked. I lifted the fitting room scene with Gabby/Viola from Banking on Bella, the photoshoot with Brittani from The Regional Manager, some of Guy's goofy skullduggery from Bad Bobby, etc. The goal's always been to take those things and then make them my own, rather than do straight-up fan works.

That said, I did actually write one scene for The Regional Manager. He had a 'fan request' tier at like $100, and I wrote the Kelly/Brenda scene where they model schoolgirl outfits in the office. Horizontical made his own modifications to it, but it was fun to have made my mark on one of my favorite AVNs.

 

[Lightaces]

Question, does she appear in the new season no matter what, or does it require Guy to pick the option to fuck her in S1? Because the "he sees her from time to time when feeling lonely" is not exactly a given, and for a number of players would be basically thrown at them out of a blue and without any input on their part.

Well, the places she is in haven't been released as a full build, only as a debugger preview, so I can't really say. In the debugger, you know her when you see her, but I would imagine if you don't know her Neon might just have her walk by unrecognized. It depends, I suppose, on if she has an essential place in the story.

 

[Joshy92]

Standard disclaimer that this is AI, but.. Enjoy!
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Nahhh, as much as I love that game, I think that what made it so fun was the dev's unique perspective. Horizontical had a certain exaggerated quality to his dialogue, expressions, body language, etc. that was very uniquely his. I don't think I'd be able to recreate it. But, I tried to infuse into FiN parts from various AVNs that I liked. I lifted the fitting room scene with Gabby/Viola from Banking on Bella, the photoshoot with Brittani from The Regional Manager, some of Guy's goofy skullduggery from Bad Bobby, etc. The goal's always been to take those things and then make them my own, rather than do straight-up fan works.

That said, I did actually write one scene for The Regional Manager. He had a 'fan request' tier at like $100, and I wrote the Kelly/Brenda scene where they model schoolgirl outfits in the office. Horizontical made his own modifications to it, but it was fun to have made my mark on one of my favorite AVNs.

OMG thank you friend. Mason is so cute.

 

[NeonGhosts]

Well, the places she is in haven't been released as a full build, only as a debugger preview, so I can't really say. In the debugger, you know her when you see her, but I would imagine if you don't know her Neon might just have her walk by unrecognized. It depends, I suppose, on if she has an essential place in the story.

For Chapter 14, Indigo will only be an option for certain paths, and only if you hired her wayyyy back in the beginning of Chapter 3. She'll still make little appearances in passing, and there might be an option to retain her services later. But for these upcoming ero scenes she's written as having some familiarity with Guy, and her appearances are kinda predicated on that.

That said, there's the possibility to meet her for the first time in Chapter 14 as well, and at some point I may tweak some of the dialogue and images to create a new path, where you can meet and hire her for the first time in Ch14. But for now, I just have too much on my plate to wander down those more esoteric paths.

 

[Lightaces]

For Chapter 14, Indigo will only be an option for certain paths, and only if you hired her wayyyy back in the beginning of Chapter 3. She'll still make little appearances in passing, and there might be an option to retain her services later. But for these upcoming ero scenes she's written as having some familiarity with Guy, and her appearances are kinda predicated on that.

That said, there's the possibility to meet her for the first time in Chapter 14 as well, and at some point I may tweak some of the dialogue and images to create a new path, where you can meet and hire her for the first time in Ch14. But for now, I just have too much on my plate to wander down those more esoteric paths.

Fully agree your plate is full enough!!!!!

It IS an odd place to have a walk by with no comment, particularly given how she is dressed. I assumed the way it is written in the previews was not going to be the only path, but no matter the path she is always going to be there, presumably.

 

[NeonGhosts]

Fully agree your plate is full enough!!!!!

It IS an odd place to have a walk by with no comment, particularly given how she is dressed. I assumed the way it is written in the previews was not going to be the only path, but no matter the path she is always going to be there, presumably.

Yup! That's another one of those things I just simplified for the test build.

Spoiler: Minor Ch.14 Spoilers

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[chichi32310]

anybody have a date on the next update?

 

[Kalthorine]

Hi all, I might be missing something in this but there are volume sliders on the Options page, but... no sound in-game? I have only just started after downloading and applying the taboo patch but the total silence is a little off-putting!

 

[Karla Jean]

Hi all, I might be missing something in this but there are volume sliders on the Options page, but... no sound in-game? I have only just started after downloading and applying the taboo patch but the total silence is a little off-putting!

Friends in Need offers a highly customizable music experience via third party applications.

 

[fleetp]

Friends in Need offers a highly customizable music experience via third party applications.

IN other words, play whatever music you want; there in no in-game music.

 

[NeonGhosts]

anybody have a date on the next update?

Soon™ -- I'm trying to finish up the Gabby love path scene. After that I'll be putting out an Alpha build. This chapter has gotten a little out of hand, and ballooned past 1800 images, and will end up over 2000 by the time I'm done. I thought these sex scenes would all go a bit quicker, but they.. Haven't.

Also it's not listed here, but on SubStar and Boosty you can find the teaser for the next chapter, which has 430~ images. I understand why someone may want to wait for the full update, but there is an update of new content for anyone who wants to see where the story's going, get a little Cassie content, etc.

Hi all, I might be missing something in this but there are volume sliders on the Options page, but... no sound in-game? I have only just started after downloading and applying the taboo patch but the total silence is a little off-putting!

Those are just default options that I've never changed, but there are sound effects and music. They're just very sparingly used. I've talked about it in the past, but I don't just want to lay a few looping tracks down and call it a day. I'd like to be very intentional about it. I don't like the idea of having a bouncy, happy song looping over a serious scene, and vice versa.

That said people keep asking about it, so maybe I'll just put in a few looping tracks as a placeholder, and let people change them as they want. I've been working on little UI/feature improvements over the last couple days, which will be added to the next build of Season 1. Might add that to the list. At present, I've added the following for the next version:

• Refined save-naming system that will default to a dated save, if you press Enter rather than put any text in the field.
• Ability to turn save-naming on or off.
• Ability to delete saves.
• Ability to advance the save/load/delete screen by ten pages at a time.
• Ability to name Season 1 exports, making them easier to manage when importing to Season 2.
• Refined Mason's dialogue portraits/name in his first appearances to reflect that Guy doesn't know his name, and make him more androgynous.

I'd like to add a series of basic character profiles and the text short stories too, but I'm not sure that'll make it into the next version. I still need to finish Madison's short story, and it's been stymieing me a bit.

 

[Duce3227]

Soon™ -- I'm trying to finish up the Gabby love path scene. After that I'll be putting out an Alpha build. This chapter has gotten a little out of hand, and ballooned past 1800 images, and will end up over 2000 by the time I'm done. I thought these sex scenes would all go a bit quicker, but they.. Haven't.

NICE, can't wait for more Gabby content.

 

[The Anti]

Can’t wait to put a baby in gabby and piss off her druggie father.

 

[ffive]

Refined save-naming system that will default to a dated save, if you press Enter rather than put any text in the field.

This... seems rather superfluous, given RenPy puts a timestamp for saves on the load/save screens by default, without any need to make it a custom name...? It's always there, along with whatever custom name the save might have otherwise.

Or maybe i don't get something here.

Ability to delete saves.

This is also already handled by Renpy by default, simply by pressing Delete key while hovering over the save. Although i guess for some people having this as explicit icon may be valuable.

 

[Duce3227]

Can’t wait to put a baby in gabby and piss off her druggie father.