Ren'Py Funkelregen [v0.9] [Janamus Sura]

[Janamus Sura]

I once again need a little bit of community feedback today:

I'm currently 60-ish % done with the next beta update, and the next big event is taking place on Heretic's Boulder/Kastar de Ranter a.k.a. Lin's homeworld and the Anvir's capital. To be more specific, the event takes place in the scorching equatorial regions covered by inhospitable deserts without natural water/life. Thematically, this event is basically a Western with a few sci-fi elements sprinkled on top (think Firefly or some Star Wars episodes taking place on Tatooine).

The thing I still need is a visual art direction for the rundown town in the middle of nowhere. In my inventory of HS-maps, I've found four art directions with a few examples:

1) Literal Wild West

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2) Arabic

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3) Star Wars/Tatooine-ish:

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4) Scrappy/Rusty

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PS: This is not a question about which of these renders you think is the most beautiful. All of these have just been quick snapshots. The finished renders for the game will, of course, include a lot more careful lighting, color-grading, etc... At this very early stage, we are just talking about thematics and art direction.

 

[TigerWolfe]

I once again need a little bit of community feedback today:

I'm currently 60-ish % done with the next beta update, and the next big event is taking place on Heretic's Boulder/Kastar de Ranter a.k.a. Lin's homeworld and the Anvir's capital. To be more specific, the event takes place in the scorching equatorial regions covered by inhospitable deserts without natural water/life. Thematically, this event is basically a Western with a few sci-fi elements sprinkled on top (think Firefly or some Star Wars episodes taking place on Tatooine).

The thing I still need is a visual art direction for the rundown town in the middle of nowhere. In my inventory of HS-maps, I've found four art directions with a few examples:

1) Literal Wild West

Spoiler

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2) Arabic

Spoiler

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3) Star Wars/Tatooine-ish:

Spoiler

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4) Scrappy/Rusty

Spoiler

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PS: This is not a question about which of these renders you think is the most beautiful. All of these have just been quick snapshots. The finished renders for the game will, of course, include a lot more careful lighting, color-grading, etc... At this very early stage, we are just talking about thematics and art direction.

i vote tatooine as it already kinda amalgamates a few of the others, that or 4

 

[garyH]

If I'm remembering correctly that Lin's people are to some degree the antithesis of Sarle's, I feel like the tatooine aesthetic would be slightly more fitting than the rust/scrap aesthetic.

Based solely off of only Sarle and Lintar, I feel like Sarle's people would have more of an elegant, unified, almost clinical look to their cities. With Lintar's people being something of the opposite of Sarle's, I feel like they would have a more rugged, harsh look to their cities, though not nessessarily dirty/filthy like the rust/scrap seems to be, so the Tatooine aesthetic seems a bit more fitting, in line with Lin's harsh/rugged, though diligent, personality. I'm not against the western or Arabic looks, but I'd expect a little more sign of technology from a space faring civilization.

 

[Kagarus]

From the description of Heretic's Boulder so far in general, and the particular area in particular, I think 1 (the western set) doesn't really fit:
Why build with wooden planks like that, in a place with no source of timber. If you need to source all your building materially locally, stone/bricks would probably work better (so 2).
Assuming the people that build it could bring in some amount of building materials (from a colonyship, trade/support from a more developed/industrial settlement etc), a mix with more advanced stuff like 3 or 4 would probably be best (and IMHO also looks aesthetically the most fitting).

 

[Quetzzz]

The thing I still need is a visual art direction for the rundown town in the middle of nowhere. In my inventory of HS-maps, I've found four art directions with a few examples:

I think 2 or 3 are most fitting. Kagarus is right about building with wood in an arid desert, and 4 would indicate that these people don't maintain their homes with all the rust, though it fits with being rundown. I would question why they used that material to build in the first place when it can oxidize, certainly in a space age. Tatooine mixes prefabs with stone, while Arabic has mostly stone. Out of those two, I'd go with Arabic if the town is ancient; otherwise, Tatooine.

 

[Janamus Sura]

I have to admit that I didn't think about the wood problem, Kagarus. But of course, it is a stupid idea to build your town out of wood, if the next living tree is like 200 km up north... Furthermore, the Western maps have a lot of English/Latin writings and other distinctively human elements, which wouldn't make sense on pre-League Heretic's Boulder. In addition, the Western style is probably way too close to historic Earth and would break the suspension of disbelief, making it very hard to sell this as an alien planet with a non-human population. But on the other hand, since the plot structure in this event is basically a Western, you could argue that Western visuals would support that...

Furthermore, this is still somewhat sci-fi, but the Western and Arabic styles don't convey that at all. Meanwhile, the Tatooine and Rusty styles showcase a level of technological sophistication, as well as their state of disrepair. Despite the Anvir being space-faring at this point, this town is supposed to be in the middle of nowhere with next to no infrastructure. I mean, it isn't hard to believe such gradients in development could exist on the same planet...



Furthermore, I also think my maps for the Arabic style just aren't very good or detailed. Also, many could still see the Arabic style as too human for an alien planet. This leaves us realistically with only Tatooine and Rusty. Rusty could maybe highlight the mining-town aesthetic... But in the end, there aren't many objective arguments for and against Tatooine and Rusty - I guess it's mostly personal preference, and it looks like Tatooine is clearly winning:




And as most of you correctly deduced, the Anvir are the antithesis of the Advar in almost every category. Advar architecture is mostly bright/clean, high/light-weight, with high homogeneity and low individualism, dominated by round shapes.



The Anvir, on the other hand, have a very rugged, "down to earth" architecture: Very sturdy, from rock (showcase difference in home world gravity) with a blocky/rectangular building style. Furthermore, the Anvir don't use windows, to protect themselves and their albinotic eyes from their scorching blue sun, hence they are forced to wear sunglasses/welding googles outside. The windowless architecture again disqualifies the Western maps/aesthetics.



And also, remember the Anvir were technically already space-faring when they were exiled from Advar Prime/arrived on Heretic's boulder. So there are no "ancient" cities.

 

[Kagarus]

Ignoring economic/technological implications and just going with what fits the intended vibes bets is definitely a legit way of doing things, not every worldbuilding decision needs to be "sound", but taking them into account can on occasion help make things feel more fitting (or inspire further worldbuilding).

Mining town implies regular (even if maybe rare) contact with the outside word - you're either trading the stuff you're getting out of the earth to others, or you're there working on behalf of larger entity. So unlike say a settlement that was set up without any significant outside support, you'd expect prefabs, power, airconditioning...
And if, say, sweltering heat inside the building would help to set the vibe better... well, either that's because of in-universe reason (the AC system is positively ancient, replacement parts are a nightmare to source because they haven't been in production for decades, replacing the system with something made this century has been on the to-do list for almost as long but <politics>, and the local definition of room temperature makes even other Anvir sweat ) or everyone just hums the MST3K theme song

 

[TauTau_de]

I'm currently at the point where I only have left the "The Warden" quest, which takes me to the "end of update" text. But I also have "Path of Banishment" left open, which says Increase Sabrinas affection (10/11), so I guess I missed an affection point (probably the one where I have Sabrina end the fight in the ingame game of which existance i learned through search here). Probably there's no way to get that last point?

 

[Quetzzz]

I'm currently at the point where I only have left the "The Warden" quest, which takes me to the "end of update" text. But I also have "Path of Banishment" left open, which says Increase Sabrinas affection (10/11), so I guess I missed an affection point (probably the one where I have Sabrina end the fight in the ingame game of which existance i learned through search here). Probably there's no way to get that last point?

In your room, can you use the rewrite system to add that point for Sabrina?

 

[TauTau_de]

In your room, can you use the rewrite system to add that point for Sabrina?

I can access it, but funnily I only see 9 points there and a -1 deduction possible. So I don't see where to add it
Edit: There is some purple graphic that I can also see with some other girls in the rewrite system, is that something I missed?
Also I miss one image with her in the gallery (the last one)

 

[Quetzzz]

I can access it, but funnily I only see 9 points there and a -1 deduction possible. So I don't see where to add it
Edit: There is some purple graphic that I can also see with some other girls in the rewrite system, is that something I missed?
Also I miss one image with her in the gallery (the last one)

Honestly, I'm not sure. I'm not that familiar with the inner workings. Hopefully someone else can help.

 

[Janamus Sura]

Version 0.10 Beta 1



It's a little bit early for Christmas, but regardless, I have a new beta version ready for you!

Changelog (compared to public release 0.9):

• 416 new HD renders
• 6 new animations
• 5.269 new lines of code
• 1 new sex scene
• 12 new soundtracks/SFX

Current stats:

• 10.714 HD renders
• 373 animations
• 10.714 lines of code
• 267 soundtracks/SFX
• about 2 in-game months of content

Of course, we will see the resolution of last time's cliff hanger in addition to a large main quest event, as well as a long "date" with Lin.

Have fun with the beta, and I hope I won't need too long for the next one...


The Patreon-only beta can be acquired here:

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The last public update (V0.9) can be downloaded for free here:

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Preview images: