VN Ren'Py Genesis [Ep.24 - Part 1] [Solensis]

[Shenhan]

I like the game over all, it has an interesting story, good renders, some interesting characters and epic battles.

While the battles are cool, personally I don't enjoy the combat system, but it's definitely not as tedious as it could be. A lot of the fights seems to come down to a 'he who transforms last wins' situation. Which doesn't really bother me, but I thought it'd be worth mentioning as it does make the scenes unfold in a predictable manner.

One thing that somewhat concerns me, but not really is the rapid introduction of new characters, while I understand the need for it in the current plot development, you've barely started to develop the ones you already have, which meant that when they all when missing, I didn't really care much as the only one who really interested me was Edea, mostly because she's stoic and a darkelf. The MC's shadow summons are a far more interesting group.

This manual input quiz system you have where the player has to type in the answers is quite frankly annoying, even when the questions are easy and you know the answers there's no guarantee your input will be correct. To be honest, I'm going to to just come straight here for the answers without even trying anyway. And as a personal issue, I don't always have my keyboard at hand when I play these games, I'm lying in bed with my laptop plugged into a tv, so it's kind of annoying when you suddenly ask me to type things in. Now I'm not asking you to tailor the game to my playing experience, that would be absurd. I'm just bringing it up because I can't be the only one who doesn't have a conventional set up and it may be something to consider if you haven't already.

One thing that kind of drives me nuts in a lot of games is when you put me in a room or start a conversation and give me a list of options that I HAVE to click through. If it's unavoidable content, intrinsic to the story, why not just go through it all in one linear sweep? Instead of breaking it up into segments and making me reset after every choice just to pick the next one? It just breaks the immersion and ruins the flow of the game. The Paralax tower has this issue a lot, like the test for the colour combinations where you're given 5 or 6 options all of which are wrong but you have to click through them all anyway. Then you get given the answer but still requires a cumbersome manual input. Followed by a battle, where your options are essentially 'left' or 'right' over and over again, and no roll back when you inevetably pick the wrong one because there no clue or indication as to which is right. The result is that I just stop reading the text and either skip or button mash my way through to less tedious parts of the game. I genuinely don't understand the thought process behind that, it's like you're trying to troll the player.

There are aspects to this which baffle and annoy me, but over all it's a great game.

 

[MiHawkins]

This manual input quiz system you have where the player has to type in the answers is quite frankly annoying, even when the questions are easy and you know the answers there's no guarantee your input will be correct.

Let's be honest, in the current version of the game, this happens exactly once. Five very straghitforward questions of which maybe one doesn't have an obvious answer (I tried "air", "Air" and "AIR" for the first question before trying "future".)

And as a personal issue, I don't always have my keyboard at hand when I play these games, I'm lying in bed with my laptop plugged into a tv, so it's kind of annoying when you suddenly ask me to type things in.

As I see it, if you're using a computer and deliberately don't have a keyword at hand... that's on you and you alone.
What's next? Complaining that the game uses power and you don't always have a charger at hand?

 

[Aioto]

Let's be honest, in the current version of the game, this happens exactly once. Five very straghitforward questions of which maybe one doesn't have an obvious answer (I tried "air", "Air" and "AIR" for the first question before trying "future".)

With me it was the question about the name of the bar the MC worked at. I went through the beginning of the game again to figure out the name then tried several times to type it but it was always wrong, then looking through the thread I find the answers and it turns out that my answer was missing a "The" in the beginning. All the others went fairly easily.

 

[Shenhan]

Let's be honest, in the current version of the game, this happens exactly once. Five very straghitforward questions of which maybe one doesn't have an obvious answer (I tried "air", "Air" and "AIR" for the first question before trying "future".)

It happens more than once, which is irrelevant because nobody said anything about the difficulty or the regularity of it. I'm giving feed back on an aspect of the game. Which is what these threads are for.

As I see it, if you're using a computer and deliberately don't have a keyword at hand... that's on you and you alone.
What's next? Complaining that the game uses power and you don't always have a charger at hand?

Nice of you to use a quote from my comment, but conveniently leave out the part of the paragraph where I directly address the thing you're whingeing about.

Based on the fact that you're making arguments in bad faith and then following them up with sarcasm, it seems to me like you just want a confrontation, and this isn't really the place for it.

 

[Allan Trumbull]

Episode 23 part one android apk with gallery unlocker

You must be registered to see the links

 

[Solensis]

One thing that somewhat concerns me, but not really is the rapid introduction of new characters, while I understand the need for it in the current plot development, you've barely started to develop the ones you already have, which meant that when they all when missing, I didn't really care much as the only one who really interested me was Edea, mostly because she's stoic and a darkelf. The MC's shadow summons are a far more interesting group.

The characters that are in MC's group and some other side characters will all have unique side quests in the future that the player will be able to tackle in to learn more about them but it needs time as it will be at a specific point of the story.

Also, the main group of MC will have entire Episodes related to them and their story as you progress through the game.

This manual input quiz system you have where the player has to type in the answers is quite frankly annoying, even when the questions are easy and you know the answers there's no guarantee your input will be correct. To be honest, I'm going to to just come straight here for the answers without even trying anyway. And as a personal issue, I don't always have my keyboard at hand when I play these games, I'm lying in bed with my laptop plugged into a tv, so it's kind of annoying when you suddenly ask me to type things in. Now I'm not asking you to tailor the game to my playing experience, that would be absurd. I'm just bringing it up because I can't be the only one who doesn't have a conventional set up and it may be something to consider if you haven't already.

I actually modified in a previous update the possible answers for those questions allowing a bigger flexibility in answering them so for exemple, instead of "The Future/the future", you can now answer "The Future/the future/The future/the Future/future/Future" which is quite a lot of flexibility for a specific answer and for those who don't want to guess or who can't find the answers, they are all on my discord in the walkthrough channel so everyone can play as they want.

As someone mentionned, you not having your keyboard sound like an issue that only concerns you as far as I know and even if there was more players like that, I wouldn't change it since you're supposed to be on your desk when you use a pc.

One thing that kind of drives me nuts in a lot of games is when you put me in a room or start a conversation and give me a list of options that I HAVE to click through. If it's unavoidable content, intrinsic to the story, why not just go through it all in one linear sweep? Instead of breaking it up into segments and making me reset after every choice just to pick the next one? It just breaks the immersion and ruins the flow of the game. The Paralax tower has this issue a lot, like the test for the colour combinations where you're given 5 or 6 options all of which are wrong but you have to click through them all anyway. Then you get given the answer but still requires a cumbersome manual input. Followed by a battle, where your options are essentially 'left' or 'right' over and over again, and no roll back when you inevetably pick the wrong one because there no clue or indication as to which is right. The result is that I just stop reading the text and either skip or button mash my way through to less tedious parts of the game. I genuinely don't understand the thought process behind that, it's like you're trying to troll the player.

I give the player the choice to ask questions to the character to enhance the immersion actually because it makes you partake into the story instead of just reading things.

As for the battle system, it is not random as there is an actual pattern to the ennemies attacks. It's based on the position of the enemy and if you can't see it, you can just go with trial and error so you literally need to miss two times to memorize the pattern since there are only two choices in normal fights. Mashing your way through a fight will not work most of the time. It's not called trolling, it's called making the visual novel more interactive.

If you wish to play a Visual Novel that is purely text that you scroll to, there are a lot of good kinetic visual novels on this website that you will definitely enjoy but Genesis is not one of them

 

[Ge0rgy]

Some of the Riddle Answers are not really obvoius. The Thing you could break without touching it could also be "trust"
(as in breaking somweones trust" or breaking a heart.
The thing which lets you see less the more of it is there could also be somehting like "mist"...
So it took me quite some tries to get it right.
I guess i was polarized in my mind towards breaking trust by the conversation of valentina with her parents beforehand...
Can someone please explain this asshole of "a higher being" that the very fact that he was killed by a human is simple proof of the bullshit he speaks? - well... as for me i think this slave-selling merchant bitch got what she deserved.
Nice game overall Solensis, altough a bit long-winded some times. As if the battle of the suitors would not be enough, the mc has to track down his captive friends, watch over louise and go on trials in his mind...
By the way, Faust seems to not even trust his own judgement in a successor? - and what if the successor would not succeed in the trials... what would happen to Faust'S legacy and his poer then? - keep it locked forever until the successor dies and then ther eis no one to follow up at all? - not really thought through i guess...

 

[Solensis]

Some of the Riddle Answers are not really obvoius. The Thing you could break without touching it could also be "trust"
(as in breaking somweones trust" or breaking a heart.
The thing which lets you see less the more of it is there could also be somehting like "mist"...
So it took me quite some tries to get it right.
I guess i was polarized in my mind towards breaking trust by the conversation of valentina with her parents beforehand...
Can someone please explain this asshole of "a higher being" that the very fact that he was killed by a human is simple proof of the bullshit he speaks? - well... as for me i think this slave-selling merchant bitch got what she deserved.
Nice game overall Solensis, altough a bit long-winded some times. As if the battle of the suitors would not be enough, the mc has to track down his captive friends, watch over louise and go on trials in his mind...
By the way, Faust seems to not even trust his own judgement in a successor? - and what if the successor would not succeed in the trials... what would happen to Faust'S legacy and his poer then? - keep it locked forever until the successor dies and then ther eis no one to follow up at all? - not really thought through i guess...

They are meant to not be too obvious so people have to think about it, that's the concept of a riddle after all

For the MC having to find his abducted friends, it's because that will lead to the next part of the story since it was foreshadowed before too and the tower as well.

Watching over Louise is the task of Valentia.

The fact that Faust put a trial on his heir is a very common trope in that kind of story to be honest and no, if MC wouldn't have been able to do the trial, he would have just left the tower and not fixed the issue as I never mentionned that he is stuck inside of it but since it's a game and not a movie or a real life thing, obviously the player will succeed in going through the tower.

 

[zeerin]

As someone mentionned, you not having your keyboard sound like an issue that only concerns you as far as I know and even if there was more players like that, I wouldn't change it since you're supposed to be on your desk when you use a pc.

I give the player the choice to ask questions to the character to enhance the immersion actually because it makes you partake into the story instead of just reading things.

No comment on the not changing the manual input part, that's your prerogative as the developer, but that's a bullshit reason. You don't have to be at a desk when you use a computer. The only time you need to be by the keyboard is if you're intending to use it. If you're putting on a series on Netflix, watching porn, playing a game, etc. you don't typically need the keyboard for more than 30s (exception being noted if you play games with keyboard and mouse as opposed to controller), so there's no reason not to have it hooked up to your tv while you recline on your sofa or bed or whatever.

That doesn't actually enhance the immersion at all. It's also not a big deal, after all you're far from the only developer to do questions like that, but it's just padding, not immersion.

 

[mpekas]

The latest version has some issues displaying some images/videos - there's no video playing in the main menu(new game/load/etc) and the image on the top-right corner in game looks a bit weird/corrupted:

Also the 'back' image under 'Stories' is just a black image.




Edit: This is on linux.

 

[Ge0rgy]

They are meant to not be too obvious so people have to think about it, that's the concept of a riddle after all

I didnt mean obvious as in "no need to think" but obvious as "not ambiguous". As i mentioned before, there are multiple possible answers and only one of them is correct, although the others might make perfect sense too and there is no way but trial and error to determine the right one.

For the MC having to find his abducted friends, it's because that will lead to the next part of the story since it was foreshadowed before too and the tower as well.

Watching over Louise is the task of Valentia.

The fact that Faust put a trial on his heir is a very common trope in that kind of story to be honest and no, if MC wouldn't have been able to do the trial, he would have just left the tower and not fixed the issue as I never mentionned that he is stuck inside of it but since it's a game and not a movie or a real life thing, obviously the player will succeed in going through the tower.

Yes i understand the dramaturgy and the concept of testing the successor, some things just seemed strange:
a) letting others decide what trials should be appropriate. - I mean a successor is something important, it is like testing your son... making others do this is quite reckless and dangerous
b) if i implement such a trial for my successor, i must account for the possibility that he fails them... and then what? - Whats the point of having a successor if he is unable to use the power bestowed upon him, or even give it to someone else. The successor failing the trials would be the equivalent of not having a successor at all... so even if he is not stuck inside - from Fausts point of view it makes few sense choosing someone as an heir and then getting him killed... what would happen to fausts power then? - Having no heir at all?
It is a quite common trope sure, but makes no sense nonetheless. Just a matter of dramaturgy, storytelling and letting people get a feeling of achievment - or legitimation for the "heir" as he wasn't just gifted the power but had to do somehting for it...
I just mean, in most cases, people are tested _before_ becoming an heir, so that there could be another choice if they don't make it. (Similarly, this whole suitor-thingy is constructed like that...determine who is worthy - but as a competition, not just to determine if the initial choice was a good one...)

Thats why i find this episode witht the tower somewhat strange - but thats just me, no need to feel agitated by this.

 

[Solensis]

The latest version has some issues displaying some images/videos - there's no video playing in the main menu(new game/load/etc) and the image on the top-right corner in game looks a bit weird/corrupted:

Also the 'back' image under 'Stories' is just a black image.

View attachment 2669961 View attachment 2669962
View attachment 2670024

Edit: This is on linux.

Someone mentionned that to me too, might be a linux issue but it will be corrected for next update hopefully. Might have been an uploading issue but I don't know why

I didnt mean obvious as in "no need to think" but obvious as "not ambiguous". As i mentioned before, there are multiple possible answers and only one of them is correct, although the others might make perfect sense too and there is no way but trial and error to determine the right one.


Yes i understand the dramaturgy and the concept of testing the successor, some things just seemed strange:
a) letting others decide what trials should be appropriate. - I mean a successor is something important, it is like testing your son... making others do this is quite reckless and dangerous
b) if i implement such a trial for my successor, i must account for the possibility that he fails them... and then what? - Whats the point of having a successor if he is unable to use the power bestowed upon him, or even give it to someone else. The successor failing the trials would be the equivalent of not having a successor at all... so even if he is not stuck inside - from Fausts point of view it makes few sense choosing someone as an heir and then getting him killed... what would happen to fausts power then? - Having no heir at all?
It is a quite common trope sure, but makes no sense nonetheless. Just a matter of dramaturgy, storytelling and letting people get a feeling of achievment - or legitimation for the "heir" as he wasn't just gifted the power but had to do somehting for it...
I just mean, in most cases, people are tested _before_ becoming an heir, so that there could be another choice if they don't make it. (Similarly, this whole suitor-thingy is constructed like that...determine who is worthy - but as a competition, not just to determine if the initial choice was a good one...)

Thats why i find this episode witht the tower somewhat strange - but thats just me, no need to feel agitated by this.

Yes, I can understand your point on the "ambiguous answer" issue but I can't fix that unfortunately unless I change the question but I would have to test all the questions again even though the answers are just on the Discord if needs be

A - Who said Faust let other people decide the trials? It's not mentionned anywhere.

B - Well, the thing is Faust didn't plan to die in the first place so the trial was supposed to be held in a different manner obviously but unfortunately, he did died, hence the current situation. As for why he picked MC to be his heir and not someone else or more people, that's something that will be explained down the line in the story. You can't judge the current standing of the story without having all the cards in hands after all

 

[mpekas]

Someone mentionned that to me too, might be a linux issue but it will be corrected for next update hopefully. Might have been an uploading issue but I don't know why

I extracted the rpa and it seems that the image in the top-right has been changed so that doesn't seem to be a linux issue but i'm not sure how to debug the video issue.

Edit: I tried on windows 11 as well - the video doesn't work.

 

[mpekas]

I got it, game/gui/* is the issue, copying game/gui/* from 22.5 over 23 results in everything working just fine.

 

[John Bon Clay]

How are you so bad at the game,that such a simple task is causing difficulty in understanding the rather simple game mechanics? The path for defeating bosses during fight scenes (not including those with health bars) requires you to select either a power/dodge/kick correctly or you get a simple game over and try again, but lets not worry about it since players can easily roll back if they make any wrong decisions. Moreover, I have managed to complete every episode that has been released so far while only getting one bad ending.

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

also a kinetic novel is reading with no interaction, this game actually has quite a few choice options that affects the story and how the main character progresses. You can either play as a good guy or an asshole, and freely choose whichever girls you want to romance while progressing the plot.In order to get past all episodes effortlessly all you need is to keep track of what's happening inside the game,It is that easy,if you had common sense the game wouldn't be difficult for you.

Did you even read what I wrote? I said the game was easy? Just look at the stance? If you took a hit, do the other?
How you managed to not understand/comprehend that is beyond me.

Also I stopped reading your wall of nonsense when I realized you had no clue what you were talking about.
Make it shorter next time.

 

[John Bon Clay]

Also Solensis, you should learn how to take critic better. The fact that you down-voted/facepalmed me shows that you are a little immature and not able to take critics.
Ask yourself, was or am I truly wrong? Then If I was, wouldn't you just let it go? Like whatever?, No, you took direct action, it tells me you are bad at critics and you know I'm right.
That's fine btw though, if you agree, just do better?

Or if ignorance works better for money income, do that. Have fun making that last btw.
I am actually trying to help with this. believe or not.

 

[Ge0rgy]

A - Who said Faust let other people decide the trials? It's not mentionned anywhere.

Well, it seems quite obvious that it is this way, considering Lucius actions which Faust did not notice. He obviously did not check the tower before he died or he would have noticed that the female scentist is missing (sorry, i can't remember the names adhoc)
+ This holy woman seems to be very much misinformed about the trials and whats going on there.
I also wonder why he did not suspect fould play as lucius requested living beings to experiment on... hell... letting such people design trials for your successor?
I am not sure in what way it would please him to put a bullet through the head of the person he designated as an heir?

Maybe i am misremembering, but i have a vague reall of a conversation between MC and this Holy woman Advisor, and one of them mentioning that this trial was not going as it was supposed to be...
If Faust would have decided how the Trials go, wouldn't he have told his "advisor" more details? - Whats the point of setting someone up to look after the participant, if the supervisor has no clue and no power at all? - Just to witness the trialist getting killed?

B - Well, the thing is Faust didn't plan to die in the first place so the trial was supposed to be held in a different manner obviously but unfortunately, he did died, hence the current situation. As for why he picked MC to be his heir and not someone else or more people, that's something that will be explained down the line in the story. You can't judge the current standing of the story without having all the cards in hands after all

Even if he didnt plan to die (who does...?) - he obviously planned for the worst - or he wouldn't have setup everything the way it is. Lumia and Umbra, the tower, the holy woman etc.
Thats what puzzles me. If i set myself in his shoes, i am a powerful being, that _might_ die. So i prepare for the worst... ok. Understandable.
But this means i have to make sure something of my power remains - or someone able to wield it - or it would be pointless having an heir at all and i could simply let everything die with me. (if he did not die, he would not even need a successor or think about this, so he must have at least considered the possibility)
So if it is that important to have an heir... then how the hell is it appropriate to get him killed if he isn't saved by chance - or rather by the reckless actions of his companion.
Could Faust have predicted that she would run, distracting the Killer android? That she would do this at just the right moment to not get killed herself (and thus being useless as further help) and getting the heir killed in the followup? - Quite the Gamble if you ask me.
So either he didn't intend the trial to be lethal... and if this is the case lucius clearly overstepped his boundaries here (thus why i mentioned that Faust did not design the trials himself, at least not in this detail) ... or he simply had some quite serious habit on gambling for a positive outcome ... there is no fallback plan at all, is there?
Plan A was to survive himself...
Plan B was to have an Heir continuing his Legacy, wielding his power or whatever...
But what was plan C ? - If plan B is obviously that fragile...
Maybe its just me overthinking this, bad habit of finding logical flaws... but i can not for the sake of my life guess why someone should do such a setup, it simply makes no other sense to me other than drama...

 

[Solensis]

I got it, game/gui/* is the issue, copying game/gui/* from 22.5 over 23 results in everything working just fine.

Yeah so it might have been an uploading issue that corrupted the files then, thank you for the report

Also Solensis, you should learn how to take critic better. The fact that you down-voted/facepalmed me shows that you are a little immature and not able to take critics.
Ask yourself, was or am I truly wrong? Then If I was, wouldn't you just let it go? Like whatever?, No, you took direct action, it tells me you are bad at critics and you know I'm right.
That's fine btw though, if you agree, just do better?

Or if ignorance works better for money income, do that. Have fun making that last btw.
I am actually trying to help with this. believe or not.

The facepalm is because of what you said about choices not affecting the story even though you literally have three paths in the story to take and it affects the outcome of a situation almost every single time.

I don't see how using an emoji is related to my reaction to critics since yours is not even argumentative because you just said that choices don't affect the story but they do so that's just you spouting nonsense about the game.

Also, you talk about money income but I've been working on the game for more than two years with barely any support on Patreon aside very few loyal supporters so if I was doing that for money, I would have stopped a while ago so I would appreciate if you don't make assumption like that, thank you.

Well, it seems quite obvious that it is this way, considering Lucius actions which Faust did not notice. He obviously did not check the tower before he died or he would have noticed that the female scentist is missing (sorry, i can't remember the names adhoc)
+ This holy woman seems to be very much misinformed about the trials and whats going on there.
I also wonder why he did not suspect fould play as lucius requested living beings to experiment on... hell... letting such people design trials for your successor?
I am not sure in what way it would please him to put a bullet through the head of the person he designated as an heir?

Maybe i am misremembering, but i have a vague reall of a conversation between MC and this Holy woman Advisor, and one of them mentioning that this trial was not going as it was supposed to be...
If Faust would have decided how the Trials go, wouldn't he have told his "advisor" more details? - Whats the point of setting someone up to look after the participant, if the supervisor has no clue and no power at all? - Just to witness the trialist getting killed?

Maybe it's because Faust died before the tower trials were even finished? I told you that without the full story in hand of the Parallax Tower, you can't comprehend the concept of it and why everything is happening this way.

As for Angela and Lucius, me answering the rest of your question would be a spoiler

 

[Ge0rgy]

Maybe it's because Faust died before the tower trials were even finished? I told you that without the full story in hand of the Parallax Tower, you can't comprehend the concept of it and why everything is happening this way.

As for Angela and Lucius, me answering the rest of your question would be a spoiler

Maybe i'll come back to this after the story is done. In my opinion even if Faust died before the tower was finished, putting Lucius there was obviously not a good choice. But somehow you are just proving my point. If he died before the Finish, this means he had no control over the outcome in the end. So its a safe bet to say that the Trials are not really his doing in the end but obviously influenced by the madman scientist creating killer androids.
But as i already mentioned, i can understand all this content from a dramturgy point of view. I also had a good laugh at that fight Vampire vs. Mercenary. Of course after she hat won the first time, and he was kneeling, she had to talk and talk and yadda yadda until he was injected with the syringe, almost getting her killed in the process. It would have been dead eays just to kick him to the ground, knock out the merchant and escape with louise in this situation... but protagonists and helpers in VNs and Stories always wait for Godot anf give the bad guys time to retaliate... - pure dramaturgy. Nothing any sane person would do in a real Situation like this because it is simply too dangerous. The same thing about the killer android. Nothing a sane person would put in a trial, but simply there to keep the story interesting.
Surely, i'll continue playing and put this assumption to the test, lets see what the point of all this really could be. But i doubt the story development can falsify my logic

 

[Pushpa Gotama]

Are the following tags, these be avoidable?

anal sex, corruption, female domination, footjob, male domination, mind control, monster

I also heard of rape, are these tags connected with of each other?

Are all these avoidable?