Tristrix

Member
Jun 30, 2019
208
427
Is there some longterm benefit to NOT treating the elves like slaves? Cuz right now it seems the only difference is Sex Scene vs No Sex Scene.
I started a new playthrough since I went with the love route first and got completely stonewalled. You get one decent scene per girl and they kinda hate you for it and two of the three of them openly dislike what they're doing and it just kinda made me feel weird.

Basically, it's not worth even worrying about it yet until they've got more content and right now we've got no way of knowing how that story is going to progress. I've got saves for both routes now so whatever I guess.
 

Master of Puppets

Conversation Conqueror
Oct 5, 2017
7,228
9,519
Converting it to webm or any other video format would either not reduce the file size any, increase the file size, or lower the quality too much. At least that's what I can remember from a friend of mine trying to see if webm is viable.

Another note to add to that, I've been told that videos don't loop in Renpy well at all, and when they do, they stutter like crazy.
Either you misremembered or your friend seriously misinformed you. Proper video codecs are far more efficient than storing individual frames. I converted one of Lin's anal scenes to webm, it weighs in at about 10% of the size of the individual frames. You can see for yourself what the quality is like. I included an updated "animations_and_flags" file, so you can drop this right in the "game" folder and test it. Personally, I can't really tell the difference between it and the other outfits even knowing which one it is (It's the "slut" outfit).
 

Mathesar

Active Member
Mar 20, 2018
732
1,586
Either you misremembered or your friend seriously misinformed you. Proper video codecs are far more efficient than storing individual frames. I converted one of Lin's anal scenes to webm, it weighs in at about 10% of the size of the individual frames. You can see for yourself what the quality is like. I included an updated "animations_and_flags" file, so you can drop this right in the "game" folder and test it. Personally, I can't really tell the difference between it and the other outfits even knowing which one it is (It's the "slut" outfit).
The reason is keyframes. Basically, the only time a full frame is stored is when the camera cuts to a new shot or the scene radically changes. An explosion suddenly making everything orange, for instance. All other times, each frame only contains information on how it's different from the preceding frame. If you have something like a shot of a character speaking in a cartoon, say, Family Guy, you can radically cut down on the information stored for each frame by using an initial keyframe and having the rest of the frames only contain partial data primarily regarding the speaking character's face.
 

Tristrix

Member
Jun 30, 2019
208
427
Okay so, I just want to take a minute to say how much I absolutely love this game. It honestly surprised me how much I enjoyed it because I'm not typically a huge fan of harem games but this one is special.

I feel like in a lot of harem games, the girls are treated like Pokémon. We catch em all, use them a bit and that's all there is to them. I genuinely fell in love with the girls in this game though. Almost all of them are unique and special in some way. Sure, they're all based on one trope or another but they still have a personality that's believable and attractive.

More than that, though, the group dynamic as a whole stood out to me. Each of the characters in the story were broken in some way. They had all experienced some personal hardship or tragedy in their lives that brought them together. It's heavy shit at times. Abuse, neglect, death, bullying... things must of us can relate to at some point in our lives have brought these characters together in this unusual family and it's easy for me as I play the game to feel a sense of connection to them. I want to fix these people. I don't know if that's what Runey was necessarily going for here but that's how I feel. Yeah it's a sex game and yeah they're fun to play with but more than that, I want to protect them and fix them and make them happy.

I feel like this is less a harem game and more like I'm establishing a personal, meaningful relationship with each of them individually. I just... I don't know guys.. this game hit me right in the feels and I can't stop thinking about it. It's amazing.

... I totally posted this in the wrong thread a sec ago btw, I hope no one noticed that.
 

Runey

Harem Hotel
Game Developer
May 17, 2018
3,938
19,452
Okay so, I just want to take a minute to say how much I absolutely love this game. It honestly surprised me how much I enjoyed it because I'm not typically a huge fan of harem games but this one is special.

I feel like in a lot of harem games, the girls are treated like Pokémon. We catch em all, use them a bit and that's all there is to them. I genuinely fell in love with the girls in this game though. Almost all of them are unique and special in some way. Sure, they're all based on one trope or another but they still have a personality that's believable and attractive.

More than that, though, the group dynamic as a whole stood out to me. Each of the characters in the story were broken in some way. They had all experienced some personal hardship or tragedy in their lives that brought them together. It's heavy shit at times. Abuse, neglect, death, bullying... things must of us can relate to at some point in our lives have brought these characters together in this unusual family and it's easy for me as I play the game to feel a sense of connection to them. I want to fix these people. I don't know if that's what Runey was necessarily going for here but that's how I feel. Yeah it's a sex game and yeah they're fun to play with but more than that, I want to protect them and fix them and make them happy.

I feel like this is less a harem game and more like I'm establishing a personal, meaningful relationship with each of them individually. I just... I don't know guys.. this game hit me right in the feels and I can't stop thinking about it. It's amazing.

... I totally posted this in the wrong thread a sec ago btw, I hope no one noticed that.
Thank you so much! Your feedback means a lot to me, that was definitely my intentions when writing the story :)
 

Tristrix

Member
Jun 30, 2019
208
427
Thank you so much! Your feedback means a lot to me, that was definitely my intentions when writing the story :)
Btw, there was one scene in particular that really spoke to me on a personal level that I wanted to mention specifically.

Ashley started out as such a hard character for me to like. The whole creepy, needy, clingy thing was really starting to bother me. But then she has this moment when the mask slips and she begs the MC not to leave her, and she's sitting there in this completely vulnerable state of loneliness and fear of abandonment and in all honestly I teared up a little bit. It was the realest thing I've seen in a VN.

I really appreciated that. I don't know what you drew from to find that moment and I don't need to know, but it felt real and personal and it broke my fucking heart in the best possible way.
 

I'm Not Thea Lundgren!

AKA: TotesNotThea
Donor
Jun 21, 2017
6,566
18,849
Btw, there was one scene in particular that really spoke to me on a personal level that I wanted to mention specifically.

Ashley started out as such a hard character for me to like. The whole creepy, needy, clingy thing was really starting to bother me. But then she has this moment when the mask slips and she begs the MC not to leave her, and she's sitting there in this completely vulnerable state of loneliness and fear of abandonment and in all honestly I teared up a little bit. It was the realest thing I've seen in a VN.

I really appreciated that. I don't know what you drew from to find that moment and I don't need to know, but it felt real and personal and it broke my fucking heart in the best possible way.
This is one of the most moving written scenes or collection of scenes in any games I've played in recent years.
 

polycentric

Member
Donor
Mar 26, 2019
468
1,769
There are several scenes...Ashley's plea, Kali's confession of love, Maria's breakup and return, Android's musings on life...that actually give me a lump in my throat the same I way I get when I read my favorite literary passages. Not to sound like a fanboy but this is high-quality, immersive writing and is what makes this game the best of it's kind. I feel empathy for these characters and want to watch their stories continue.

Now if only I could play this, and other games like this, on planes without everyone around me freaking out :ROFLMAO:
 

HSHS1111

Active Member
Feb 8, 2019
883
1,385
I can't say I have that personal connection but it did change my outlook of her. In the beginning, to me, she was "just" an annoying yandere porn game character. But then after her history and motivations were revealed there was suddenly a frightened and lonely woman desperately trying to find a place in life. So while I still don't especially like her pregnancy fixation she did grow me quite a bit. I just wish I could reasure her and have her overcome her remaining desperation.

Speaking of which. Am I the only one thinking Ashley's mother is redeemable? Maybe I'm misremembering but wasn't it mainly her father being abusive while the mother was away because of work? So if she realises was an asshole her husband is and leaves him we can try and reconnect her and Ashley. I think that any contact outside the harem will help Ashley a lot, especially rebuilding a bridge to the past. But that will certainly not be easy.
 

Master of Puppets

Conversation Conqueror
Oct 5, 2017
7,228
9,519
Okay so, I just want to take a minute to say how much I absolutely love this game. It honestly surprised me how much I enjoyed it because I'm not typically a huge fan of harem games but this one is special.

I feel like in a lot of harem games, the girls are treated like Pokémon. We catch em all, use them a bit and that's all there is to them. I genuinely fell in love with the girls in this game though. Almost all of them are unique and special in some way. Sure, they're all based on one trope or another but they still have a personality that's believable and attractive.

More than that, though, the group dynamic as a whole stood out to me. Each of the characters in the story were broken in some way. They had all experienced some personal hardship or tragedy in their lives that brought them together. It's heavy shit at times. Abuse, neglect, death, bullying... things must of us can relate to at some point in our lives have brought these characters together in this unusual family and it's easy for me as I play the game to feel a sense of connection to them. I want to fix these people. I don't know if that's what Runey was necessarily going for here but that's how I feel. Yeah it's a sex game and yeah they're fun to play with but more than that, I want to protect them and fix them and make them happy.

I feel like this is less a harem game and more like I'm establishing a personal, meaningful relationship with each of them individually. I just... I don't know guys.. this game hit me right in the feels and I can't stop thinking about it. It's amazing.
I don't think I'd give too much credit to the girls having issues, there's no reason why healthy, well-adjusted girls can't join a harem. I agree that their backgrounds do inspire a strong protective instinct though. I'd also like to pick up on the word "family" as well, that's something I feel is important; the scenes between two or more girls really do add a lot to the game compared to if it was just MC dating a number of girls at the same time. (In my opinion if the girls aren't cool with each other you don't have a harem, but that's a conversation for another time).
I'd love to see more scenes which emphasise the family dynamic, whether that's another outing like the beach or something else (maybe the girls coming together to help with a problem one of them has rather than MC just fixing it on his own? I'm not a writer).
This absolutely broke me.
You just want to hold her and tell her you're not going anywhere, don't you? I know it's tricky in first person view, but another thing I'd like to see more of is that. Aside from taking the girls to bed at night, you don't seem to hold them or kiss them nearly often enough.
 

I'm Not Thea Lundgren!

AKA: TotesNotThea
Donor
Jun 21, 2017
6,566
18,849
There are several scenes...Ashley's plea, Kali's confession of love, Maria's breakup and return, Android's musings on life...that actually give me a lump in my throat the same I way I get when I read my favorite literary passages. Not to sound like a fanboy but this is high-quality, immersive writing and is what makes this game the best of it's kind. I feel empathy for these characters and want to watch their stories continue.

Now if only I could play this, and other games like this, on planes without everyone around me freaking out :ROFLMAO:
Do what I do, use a privacy filter! Only I can see the screen!
 

Tristrix

Member
Jun 30, 2019
208
427
There are several scenes...Ashley's plea, Kali's confession of love, Maria's breakup and return, Android's musings on life...that actually give me a lump in my throat the same I way I get when I read my favorite literary passages. Not to sound like a fanboy but this is high-quality, immersive writing and is what makes this game the best of it's kind. I feel empathy for these characters and want to watch their stories continue.

Now if only I could play this, and other games like this, on planes without everyone around me freaking out :ROFLMAO:
God. That Maria return scene when she runs up to you and hugs you and tells you she missed you... Holy shit. It's so strange in a porn game to find a moment of pure love like that.
 

Tristrix

Member
Jun 30, 2019
208
427
I don't think I'd give too much credit to the girls having issues, there's no reason why healthy, well-adjusted girls can't join a harem. I agree that their backgrounds do inspire a strong protective instinct though.
Sure, it's not 100% necessary that they're all products of broken homes with daddy issues, it's just that I love how the hotel slowly becomes this refuge for outcasts. It's like, no matter what they were like in the past and no matter what they've been through, there's this place they've created where they can find love and acceptance. Like you said, it IS a family.
 

Runey

Harem Hotel
Game Developer
May 17, 2018
3,938
19,452
For some reason even after finish Lin's story I still can't ask for a footjob for her. I just wanna get all her traits man. ;-;
Make sure you're on v0.7.2, there was a bug preventing you from getting her footjobs if you didn't initially choose the footjob
 
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