VN Ren'Py Hope: University of the Elite [v0.1.7] [Tatami Visual]

[Tatami Visual]

The game is still quite on early stages so you can still afford remakes without alienating audience, once the game develops a core audience, remaking things tend to be more difficult to pull off (as they say, "first impressions matter", and tend to stick for a long time).

Be mindful to keep the game as something you like to work with ─ it's better to lose a handful of players in short term than losing your will to work on the project in the long term. As a rule of thumb, don't try to please the general audience, focus on nurturing a core audience. It is impossible to please everyone, after all.

There's only so much willpower and strength/time a person have to pour on a given project. In general, remakes to please audience better has the highest personal cost and lowest audience cost. Making it optional have a balanced cost for both. Keeping as is has highest audience cost and lowest personal cost.

See that you keep a balance between both. Also, see that you're content with what you did, people naturally put more effort into what they're content with than what they're unsatisfied with, and low effort is the root of evil.

Also:


Disclaimer: Still haven't played that far yet, I literally only played maybe 3 minutes before getting busy IRL -.-

Thanks for the insight! I think it helped me a lot to put things in perspective. I'll stick to my guns, I really have a vision of where the story will go and I will keep going that path.

 

[Ololko]

damn hitomi....

Spoiler: hate it but love it

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Edit:
btw this shall be no hate the game is a work of art and it defenitly evokes emotions of different kinds which is totally awsome even if some of the emotions displease on a personal basis, but dont we all play games to experience just all sort of ups and downs?

 

[Woodstock_1983]

if i can't scroll back and forth, it's no worth playing.

 

[Look-see]

also would be nice to be able to change the mc's name

 

[undead_sun]

Oh no, they blackmailed me into... sex with the hot green-haired girl, how horrible!!
lol

 

[hysepReC]

Oh no, they blackmailed me into... sex with the hot green-haired girl, how horrible!!
lol

I know you're joking but that isn't what happens. Hitomi and Megumi frame Yusuke (the MC) as a rapist and use that to blackmail him into being Hitomi's "faithful dog". If you agree to have sex with Megumi after that, it just makes him look like a total idiot.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this game yet. I like Eri and Minagi and there are some funny moments with Souta but Hitomi blackmailing Yusuke into being her slave really isn't my thing. I hope we will be able to turn things around on her at some point. In my mind, there is no redemption for her (or Megumi since she was part of it too) after this. I don't care if she has strict/overbearing/abusive parents or whatever else.

 

[LizardUniverse]

ai Misaka Misaka...
ai animations...
ai hands...
this doesnt look right man
this ISNT RIGHT
the robots are taking what we love and repackaging them
just look at the ai WcDonalds in Texas, everything is going to shit
spiritually we are losing touch with our dicks

 

[sumdumbum]

Very promising start to a game. I'll admit that the story at points felt a little off. The sex scene writing was solid, but most of the situations that led to the sex scenes felt rather contrived, which throws me off. It's certainly something you get used to on this site, but there's a certain quality to this game (the music and art primarily) that prompts me to have higher standards compared to the trashier games out there.

I will reiterate the general unease around Hitomi's arc. Perhaps soften the absolutist nature of being a completely loyal dog, making it a slower descent rather than a sudden, complete submission? Just an idea..

One final musing - this game as it stands suffers from the illusion of choice. Your choices don't actually mean anything (yet?). This is a problem with AAA games as well, and the overcoming of it is what helps games really stand out to me. Finding a way to construct a build-your-own adventure story with a handful of routes that can be combined as the player desires elevates a game to a much higher level. Something like if you really like girls 1, 3, and 6, you can pursue exactly those girls in the same playthrough, and sometimes you'll have to ditch some along the way if they happen to be very incompatible with each other. I know a web like that can be pretty complicated, but consider it the top point on my wishlist

 

[LordRaven.ru]

Nice art...

 

[Callipho]

I am impressed, definitely one of the better looking AI art projects out there.

Also curious about the details of the AI generation pipeline here, like tools, models, steps etc. Author, if you are willing to talk briefly about your process that would be most appreciated

 

[Xyze]

also would be nice to be able to change the mc's name

I agree with you, that's why I made a patch to be able to choose the MC's name, you can found it here:

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[Tatami Visual]

I am impressed, definitely one of the better looking AI art projects out there.

Also curious about the details of the AI generation pipeline here, like tools, models, steps etc. Author, if you are willing to talk briefly about your process that would be most appreciated

Thank you!!!
Sorry for the late reply, I have been swamped with work.

As for the pipeline, the game is a mix of 2d drawn art (non-AI) and AI.

There were different artists that I commissioned for the original character art (characters, CG, chibi CGs). But as I wanted to improve most of the images(they were commissioned a long time ago and looked dated) I retouched many with AI and commissioned another artist for things that I could not do via AI (for example drawing uniforms for new characters or for AI CGs etc). Background art was bought from Doujin Japanese Circles.
While I've invested significantly in improving the quality of the images, these enhancements have been accompanied by financial constraints that have in turn... affected the development timeline.

As for AI, I use stable diffusion mixed with photoshop pos-edition.

I'm also working on a intro video that should come out soon

 

[Tatami Visual]

I was going to hold out until the next release around, but since I finished it, why not publish it already.

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Trailer for the game finished!

 

[SlapE]

So I saw some stuff about being the character Hitomi's loyal dog after being blackmailed, is this forced or avoidable? If I can avoid this, then I would be interested in trying this, especially because of the maledom and BDSM stuff. I like that there's a neutral path, I'm hoping you don't have to be a complete scumbag to get the maledom/BDSM content.

 

[Tatami Visual]

So I saw some stuff about being the character Hitomi's loyal dog after being blackmailed, is this forced or avoidable? If I can avoid this, then I would be interested in trying this, especially because of the maledom and BDSM stuff. I like that there's a neutral path, I'm hoping you don't have to be a complete scumbag to get the maledom/BDSM content.

It has been removed!
Hitomi's arc was changed entirely, that part of the blackmail was removed from the game due to the overwhelming feedback
Her character has been reverted back to the initial good impressions the player had from the initial interactions.

I still wanted to have a character with a darker side, and I've shifted the more darker agenda to Megumi, but that all blackmail stuff is gone!

 

[YogSothoth1982]

It has been removed!
Hitomi's arc was changed entirely, that part of the blackmail was removed from the game due to the overwhelming feedback
Her character has been reverted back to the initial good impressions the player had from the initial interactions.

I still wanted to have a character with a darker side, and I've shifted the more darker agenda to Megumi, but that all blackmail stuff is gone!

But will we be able to finish the game having a romantic relationship with all the LIs or will we have to choose one at some point in the game?

 

[Look-see]

still no option to change the MC's name...sad update. guess i'll wait till the next one.

btw Miyuki(rooftop girl) is different than Megumi right? just asking the models seem similar.

 

[micojive]

I do like the Hitomi change but theres still some questions.

For example in the first choice of the game where you choose the classroom, library, etc. Does that lock you out of paths for some girls? 3 of the locations lead to different girls and it doesnt look like you can see the rest of them.

Do the "Angel" choices lock you from seeing content in the long run? Example the Eri scene where she stays overnight. Imo if it were a "good" MC, he'd resist her, which gives the angel but the dialog makes it seem like you are turning her down forever. Which isnt what I want, I just dont want the MC to take advantage of her.

The only thing I dont like is not being able to tell Hitomi right away about Megumi. Like at the first thought of blackmail it should be the go to line of thinking.

I guess also Hitomis dads face reallllly doesnt match the rest of the characters. Feels way too normal rather than the anime style of the rest of the characters

 

[Tatami Visual]

But will we be able to finish the game having a romantic relationship with all the LIs or will we have to choose one at some point in the game?

There will be a solo romance ending for each LI. However there will be other endings that might envolve more than one LI together. I'll explain below.

In this release I inserted a system of Good, Neutral Good, Neutral, Neutral Evil, Evil:

This will impact the choices you are presented at times with some characters. For example if your interested in a more of a solo romance with your LI, it might be a good idea to keep on the neutral, neutral good, good side. If you have other interest in a type of different/content ending you can go the other route.


When faced with options to choose in game, some choices will be neutral and not affect your stand while others might, raise your morality up:

Or raise your morality down:

 

[Tatami Visual]

I do like the Hitomi change but theres still some questions.

For example in the first choice of the game where you choose the classroom, library, etc. Does that lock you out of paths for some girls? 3 of the locations lead to different girls and it doesnt look like you can see the rest of them.

No, it does not. Some choices will show you different content but will not impact in the long run, unless one of the choices makes you lose a big event(for example, on Sunday the day I'm working on, when you ditch Souta you will have the choice to check up on Eri or respond to an invitation of another character, this can impact your relationship with her if you dont check on her for example). In this first week however, there are no such big events that you can choose to do one instead of the other. I didn't want to impact the "routes" that much when the players are still only having the first interactions with the characters, so the only thing being affected is your character personality traits.

Do the "Angel" choices lock you from seeing content in the long run? Example the Eri scene where she stays overnight. Imo if it were a "good" MC, he'd resist her, which gives the angel but the dialog makes it seem like you are turning her down forever. Which isnt what I want, I just dont want the MC to take advantage of her.

In the example you gave, it does not lock you from Eri's content. If you choose rejecting her it does give you good points for turning her down in a moment of vulnerability and you will still be able to pursue her in the future (she even ends up cuddling with you). Choosing to accept however, does not bring negative perks to your relationship with her either way, so you will also be able to continue to pursue her as a LI. Even though accepting her in a moment of weakness c, it is true that she has feelings for the MC and the MC also has some feelings/past with her. That's why I don't give negative karma on this choice, since I didn't feel like it was that wrong of a choice.

Maybe in the future I should implement a relationship status so you can see at all times how your relationship stands with a certain character.