Ren'Py Horton Bay Stories - Jake [v0.4.3.3] [Lumphorn Games]

[tonny]

Where do I learn basic massage skills? and I think the game looks pretty good

 

[Stil996]

FYI - He's just as stupid in the "no Ntr" mode.
BTW, in case you skipped the intro, the MC did use his smartphone to blackmail his teacher - so it's not like he didn't know his phone had a camera.
I'm not a fan of false options. No matter what choice you make, the outcome will remain the same. The boyfriend gets away with cheating and the rapist gets away with raping - when there was a logical path to stop / avoid both.

to be fair

1. the MC is an idiot (he starts the game with an intelligence rating of zero), even in the prologue he doesn't make a little porn movie to blackmail the teacher, only taking a photo after he is spotted.
2. only a complete dick responds to the rape of a friend by taking out his phone to film it,
3. remember in that scene he is also drunk, so thinking laterally isn't so easy
4. it's fundamentally an NTR game, so no matter how sandbox it is, some stuff has to happen for it to exist, there needs to be some artistic license to the decisions available,

And I'm speaking as someone who wants all the options in a sandbox, you just have to accept that all the options means an impossible amount of work to accommodate all these extra branches

 

[Stil996]

Where do I learn basic massage skills? and I think the game looks pretty good

the bookstore

 

[longjohngold]

Well, I like the general vibe of the content and that you can be a jerk and the girls are getting used like whores, I'm looking forward to more of that drug stuff coming into it. I also dig that I've already impregnated 2 out of 3 of the 3 housemates. The faces can be real messed up some of the time, especially Adel, on some of them it's the expression used, some it's just straight up the face, others have terrible makeup. I like that there's girls with nice bodies (that aren't all overboobed), Gemma is a favourite so far, but seems like there's tons of decent looking girls to meet in the future, Jackie, Suki, Julie, Frankie, etc. I'm not a fan of sandboxes, but I'll wait till more of the game is there before dissecting that (though I would like a wait an hour button so I wouldn't have to keep jumping back to the house to pass time). I didn't like how locations I'd walk to were locked... there's no reason you couldn't just walk into any store you pass by, if you're going to do a sandbox and people will have to put up with all of the annoyances of that then at least make freeroam actually free. The download size was way too much, as the game grows that'll inflate horribly and in the compressed requests thread I saw that someone hadn't managed to knock much off of it when they tried, so not sure what's going on there.

Where do I learn basic massage skills? and I think the game looks pretty good

You can buy a book form the place you work.

 

[Taka@LumphornGames]

for me sandbox mostly suck i don't like the grind it takes but i play while waiting for updates of other games. this has great play time and even worth the read, sometimes though i wish the MC would get to the point he thinks way to much, act more.
well i think the game overall is fun to play, with cheats. Too slow without them for me.

Things i really didn't like is that the static text pic of the ladies is better looking than any faces in the main renders.
Great on the dev for having girls that are not cookie cutter like most are. but i would like a pretty face in the mix too.
a question does going around with fast travel mean i miss content?

also how can i be sure after several plays i haven't missed options? may be a content check at end of play through say " 4 out of 5 scenes reveled, could add it to phone as per character

the act too slow was real apparent in the bar with Clair and Jackson i would never let that happen she was with me so he get no play or with my drunk friend. so it took to long for MC to act he continues done this path he deserves the NTR too much a wimp. he needs to grow up. get some balls take charge more. i hope you give him some next update.

At this stage of the game, fast travel doesn't really cut out very many opportunities. Later on, we'll be adding a lot more content that you can 'stumble upon' but we'll likely make sure you can find out about them in other ways aswell.

Yeah, having finished the episode now, I'm actually frustrated by the stupidity the plot puts in mc.
I'll watch for the girl in the bar -> follows so slow girl is being raped already.
I'll confront Lucas -> Let's not use the smartphone, but (if you choose so) blabber about the cameras
Roy wants Lillie, Lillie wants fucking -> no possiblility to let Little Miss Colorblind Racoon get banged by Rob. Um, Roy.

Serious devs, do VN and railroad us openly into a stupid procuck, or let decisions do what they should: Changing the way something goes, and not only decide if mc gets the last penis in. It is alright, if all this cucking and raping is your thing, but don't take us hostage.

Edit: I'm aware there is a "no NTR" mode. Doesn't make mc less stupidly guided by power of plot, does it?

I agree there should be an option to get to Claire faster. And as such, I'll add one.

A couple of you have pointed out the logic flaw with Lucas in the Utility room and your phone camera. And that is intentional.

Giving Roy a shot with Lillie was originally something I was going to do, but I already have plans for Roy and it wouldn't work at this point.

Where do I learn basic massage skills? and I think the game looks pretty good

Thank you It's in the book shop.

 

[Taka@LumphornGames]

Well, I like the general vibe of the content and that you can be a jerk and the girls are getting used like whores, I'm looking forward to more of that drug stuff coming into it. I also dig that I've already impregnated 2 out of 3 of the 3 housemates. The faces can be real messed up some of the time, especially Adel, on some of them it's the expression used, some it's just straight up the face, others have terrible makeup. I like that there's girls with nice bodies (that aren't all overboobed), Gemma is a favourite so far, but seems like there's tons of decent looking girls to meet in the future, Jackie, Suki, Julie, Frankie, etc. I'm not a fan of sandboxes, but I'll wait till more of the game is there before dissecting that (though I would like a wait an hour button so I wouldn't have to keep jumping back to the house to pass time). I didn't like how locations I'd walk to were locked... there's no reason you couldn't just walk into any store you pass by, if you're going to do a sandbox and people will have to put up with all of the annoyances of that then at least make freeroam actually free. The download size was way too much, as the game grows that'll inflate horribly and in the compressed requests thread I saw that someone hadn't managed to knock much off of it when they tried, so not sure what's going on there.

As the game progresses, we'll be adding more ways to spend your time and probably a skip time feature aswell as it's been requested a lot.

The main reason that a lot of the locations are locked is because we haven't built them yet
All of the locations within the town itself are made by us. It's a lot of modelling to get through so it'll take a little time to open everything.

As for the file size, there's a few things I can do to help alleviate at least some of it. Optimisation is on the todo list.

 

[longjohngold]

The main reason that a lot of the locations are locked is because we haven't built them yet
All of the locations within the town itself are made by us. It's a lot of modelling to get through so it'll take a little time to open everything.

I'm not counting the ones that aren't developed. But there was plenty of occasions I tried to walk somewhere and was told it was "locked" (not missing) and had to wait later for something to happen... I think in the end I never figured out what'd unlock the burger (?) place the brunette works at... (and conversely the nightclub that gets unlocked when you talk her at dinner and she invites you to go clubbing - there's never actually someone at the reception to pay to go in).

 

[Weasel_Face]

Yet again people whining about NTR when a girl has sex with her boyfriend. Her LI is him, not the MC, the NTR is you cucking the boyfriend as she starts to dig you and you can usually send him packing and blueballed by spiking his coffee with bad cream then massaging and fucking his GF... The other dick so far is Jackson who roofies a drunk Claire and then basically rapes her in the alley, not NTR when they are being raped. Okay I admit that the beginning is NTR with the best friend & the teacher but that sets up the whole story, and the skater girls are not LI's (yet).

I abhor cucking and proper NTR against the MC but this game apart from the opening was not that, I accidentally played it with NTR "on" and I never got triggered because the scenes made sense. I look forward to the next release!

I am a bit worried about the date rape drug though, but as long as you can thwart the bad guys I'm all good...

 

[Stil996]

I'm not counting the ones that aren't developed. But there was plenty of occasions I tried to walk somewhere and was told it was "locked" (not missing) and had to wait later for something to happen... I think in the end I never figured out what'd unlock the burger (?) place the brunette works at... (and conversely the nightclub that gets unlocked when you talk her at dinner and she invites you to go clubbing - there's never actually someone at the reception to pay to go in).

you unlock the burger place among others by talking to your roommates at dinner, ask them to hangout, it's frustrating having so much WIP, at one time though, but thats just something you have to deal with in early access

 

[Taka@LumphornGames]

I'm not counting the ones that aren't developed. But there was plenty of occasions I tried to walk somewhere and was told it was "locked" (not missing) and had to wait later for something to happen... I think in the end I never figured out what'd unlock the burger (?) place the brunette works at... (and conversely the nightclub that gets unlocked when you talk her at dinner and she invites you to go clubbing - there's never actually someone at the reception to pay to go in).

This is the first release. Also, you can only unlock the nightclub in v0.1.0 by using the cheat menu to improve Christine's relationship score, and you are warned as soon as you turn cheats on that you can see unfinished content by using it.
Burger Baps was going to be opened in this version, but I we had prioritise other scenes first, so you'll get that during Ep2 as well as the nightclub for that matter. But if you want to poke around inside Burger Baps you can unlock it via the cheat menu and walk right in.

 

[Taka@LumphornGames]

you unlock the burger place among others by talking to your roommates at dinner, ask them to hangout

That's also true, but again requires cheats at this point to access that dialogue

 

[Taka@LumphornGames]

If you really want to look inside the night club you can change this variable : nightclubentrypaid = 1
That will grant you access for the rest of that day

 

[Stil996]

That's also true, but again requires cheats at this point to access that dialogue

you sure, I don't think I used cheats to get that? I did cheat some parts to explore what would happen at different friendship levels not sure that was one of them, also I had access to the pub long before it was unlocked after the party was this intentional, got there just by walking from the book store

 

[Taka@LumphornGames]

@ Taka
What does it mean here, only with Adel? Too low points?
View attachment 1351185

and found a bug here:
View attachment 1351187

Yes, I'll admit that's a bit vague! You can get to the next stage of this after buying her the toy and getting her affection points to 5 or more. I'll comb through some of those notifications and try to clear them up a bit.

Could you please let me know at which point did you get the error? Time of day etc?

 

[Taka@LumphornGames]

you sure, I don't think I used cheats to get that? I did cheat some parts to explore what would happen at different friendship levels not sure that was one of them, also I had access to the pub long before it was unlocked after the party was this intentional, got there just by walking from the book store

Christine's affection points need to be at least 10 to see this. Legitimately you can only get to 9 in this release

Edit: I'll look into the pub thing. You shouldn't be able to go inside until after Ep1 but I might have overlooked something!

Edit2: Yes, you are indeed correct. But instead of locking it, I've just made it so that if you walk there by foot and go inside, it'll unlock it on the map instead.
There won't be too much to do in there until we've fleshed it out a bit (other than during the evenings when you can have a drink and play pool with the girls).

 

[Stil996]

Christine's affection points need to be at least 10 to see this. Legitimately you can only get to 9 in this release

Fair enough, I guess I must have been cheating at that stage then lol. Kudos on making it a true sandbox element, so many would have forced that into a story trigger (one of my pet hates are people using the Sandbox tag on games that are really just VN's with extra walking)

 

[longjohngold]

This is the first release. Also, you can only unlock the nightclub in v0.1.0 by using the cheat menu to improve Christine's relationship score, and you are warned as soon as you turn cheats on that you can see unfinished content by using it.

Didn't even notice there was an inbuilt cheat thing, that's nice and will be handy in the future, I just manually pumped up all the stats in a save editor to reduce the grind and general sandbox annoyances.

 

[Taka@LumphornGames]

Didn't even notice there was an inbuilt cheat thing, that's nice and will be handy in the future, I just manually pumped up all the stats in a save editor to reduce the grind and general sandbox annoyances.

Yeah, it was mainly just there for dev use, but I figured I'd leave it for people who aren't too fond of the grind

 

[Taka@LumphornGames]

Yet again people whining about NTR when a girl has sex with her boyfriend. Her LI is him, not the MC, the NTR is you cucking the boyfriend as she starts to dig you and you can usually send him packing and blueballed by spiking his coffee with bad cream then massaging and fucking his GF... The other dick so far is Jackson who roofies a drunk Claire and then basically rapes her in the alley, not NTR when they are being raped. Okay I admit that the beginning is NTR with the best friend & the teacher but that sets up the whole story, and the skater girls are not LI's (yet).

I abhor cucking and proper NTR against the MC but this game apart from the opening was not that, I accidentally played it with NTR "on" and I never got triggered because the scenes made sense. I look forward to the next release!

I am a bit worried about the date rape drug though, but as long as you can thwart the bad guys I'm all good...

There will be a justified resolution for those involved with the serum.

 

[hobobobb]

As the game progresses, we'll be adding more ways to spend your time and probably a skip time feature aswell as it's been requested a lot.

The main reason that a lot of the locations are locked is because we haven't built them yet
All of the locations within the town itself are made by us. It's a lot of modelling to get through so it'll take a little time to open everything.

As for the file size, there's a few things I can do to help alleviate at least some of it. Optimisation is on the todo list.

After playing for 30-40 min, I think this will probably be another 'ignore' for me, which is really sad as the Dev seems to be both level-headed with response to comments and criticisms and trying to genuinely make a mature story (a combination I wish we saw more of).

That being said, as someone who played with "NTR off", I got the overall feeling that the game was designed for 'NTR on' with the 'off' option being shoe-horned in. Maybe this was not the intent, but it is how it appeared to me (to be fair this is also an early version).

I truly appreciate the effort invested by the Dev towards the non-NTR crowd (as will likely be evident by the length of this post), but it seems like they want a focused NTR (or free love/sharing/open relationship.... whatever) game and are trying to make a game path that the non-NTR crowd will enjoy (to increase player-base? $upport? Both?).

I doubt that this will work as many of the non-NTR players are pretty much "Only Mc's Dick" type players and unless you can provide a playthrough that allows for that, you are going to constantly be dealing with the whole NTR shit-storm (not really NTR by the Japanese definition, sure, but it is the nomenclature that we use around f95). This will be compounded by and made all the more intense by the use of the 'harem' tag.

I AM NOT suggesting this but I imagine that IF (hypothetically), if you made an option that removed all sexual situations not directly involving the MC and somehow were able to provide a cohesive set of story elements that caused this "only MC route" to make sense (storywise), you would have very little sexual content remaining AND/OR be very far from your original story/vision for the game.

My suggestion (and I am biased towards "Only MC/No-NTR/Sharing" style of games, is to just make this a game that has the NTR content that you want in it. Remove the "No NTR" Switch as it really doesn't stop the type of content that the "No NTR Crowd" doesn't want to see. Many players will think that it is disingenuous, as the game's introduction is literally unavoidable (skippable, yes. avoidable, no.) NTR. Badly written or out of place? I don't think so, it's a plot element that is used to spur the story on. However, 1 instance of unavoidable NTR is enough to make a lier of the 'No-NTR' switch in the minds of some, regardless of caveats.

The real issue with this "No-NTR Switch" is what it doesn't seem to stop. That is the constant, and consistent sexual situations involving 'other males', this is again compounded by 'other males with harem members/MC Li's'. The majority of the harem/no-ntr crowd is never going to accept this, and worse they will probably think the developer is baiting them with the 'no-ntr' switch.

For reference Dev, here are my (completely scientific and not made up) general observation of how the majority of the No-NTR/Only MC crowd (they are pretty much the same thing) thinks;

Example;
The typical (logical/realism) arguments from a Dev -----> Harem/No-NTR/Only MC player's mental rebuttal.

She had a history before MC ------> Ok, Don't want to see it, or discuss it, don't need 'sexual scenes' of it.

She had a partner when MC met her ----> Ok, now she has met MC/MC wants her, the old relationship now ends without further sexual contact.

She ... reason, reason, story point, reason, explanation, reason, etc ---> Ok, as the writer you created this situation, you can now create the solution that doesn't require sexual contact beyond the MC.


I am going into a lot of detail on this post/subject because I want to be very clear in the hope that this will help in aiding the developer to make their game, their way.

The developer seems to like the NTR/sharing/sexually open/everyone doing everyone/free love, style of game. Where every love interest has a pre-existing or current relationship. The developer also seems to enjoy depicting the love interests as being sexually active outside of and in situations that do not involve the MC.

While I personally do not share this preference, I can understand and respect it.

With that being said, I don't think a game that focuses on these elements will win many $upporters from the 'No-NTR/ Only MC' crowd. So I wonder if it's even worth the developer's time or effort to bother with trying to code/story/ implement a 'No NTR switch/path' that isn't likely to be of much value to the 'No-NTR/ Only Mc' crowd....(at least if the game includes the 'other males' content while the switch is active)

Maybe I am having extra issues explaining? English seems harder today ?

The Developer should focus on making what they want, this game the developer appears to want to focus on a more 'everyone is sexually active with other people' type of story (which is absolutely fine and their choice). That said, the "no-ntr/only mc" crowd isn't really going to play a game where harem members have other lovers (at least the majority of them will not).

I don't know if it would be worth the developer's time (or the difficulty it will impose) to actually try and make a path/story/play through that has both the harem elements (MC gets all the LI's) and avoids the 'other males'.

IF the developer does think it's worth their time my suggestion would be to change the concept of the 'No NTR' switch to a broader 'Only MC' switch and have that switch coded to avoid all (LI-based) sexual content that does also involves the MC as the only male participant...

Hope this long-winded insight is able to offer you some value Dev.
Best of luck!