VN Ren'Py How I Became the Bodyguard of the Saintess! [v0.8.1] [Lunardis]

[GrogGuy]

Yeah, that's kind of an issue nowadays. Just because "a lot of people do it" does not necessarily mean it's correct - it's always better to consult an actual dictionary, rather than going with just your gut feeling. An example of this is the horrendous "I would of made X" instead of "I would HAVE made X" - lately I see a lot of people using that, and it doesn't make it any less nightmarish.

Plus, with popularization of manga and anime, a lot of people started learning Japanese, except a lot of them only learn "poor man's translation" - it's my personal pet peeve when people translate something, but don't understand the phrase from native's perspective. A really quick, off the top of my head example, would be urusai, which is usually translated as "shut up" - except it's actually an adjective (what I like to call verbal adjective, so an adjective that's simultaneously being a verb) which means "loud", "ear-grating" etc. You need to know all those things, and the same word can then be translated in 10 different ways, depending on the context. Maybe that specific example doesn't happen very often, but it shows a principle. My point is, people often oversimplify translations, which leads to really weird Frankenstein's monster-type phrases, which are then being repeated by people who are influenced by these translators, but are too lazy to check what they are using in a proper dictionary. Not a good trend. Not saying I'm not guilty of doing it sometimes, but still - not a good trend.

I also vehemently disagree with the notion of "don't worry about your phrasing, as long as what you mean comes properly across" - how you say something can be just as important as what you say. It's always frustrating for me, when I see a story that has a good premise, be ruined by the author using the language like he's 12. It's not that bad in your game, but do keep that in mind for the future.

Overall, the story so far (I'm somewhere after the fae attack) seems pretty cute - my biggest complaint so far (other than what has already been said about the language) would be the tone, which seems a little confused.
One moment we have a party and silly conversations, then a bunch of terrorists come out of nowhere and start murdering people, except tonally we're still in Saturday morning cartoon land. I feel this dissonance between "some twenty people just got publicly stabbed to death" and narration/characters approaching it with a "well, this was a doozy" attitude. I feel like this should have a stronger emotional impact on people, you know what I mean?

Plus, the goddess is kind of a bitch, if she just casually accepts a contest with the chaos god, knowing that a lot of people (whom I understand she's supposed to be protecting) are going to die. Again, seems waaaay too casual, considering what's at stake.

Not that I particularly expect this much commitment or effort from the average player, but if you're rather confident in your usage of a language, and you notice concrete examples of sentences, grammar, or wording that could be improved; I think it would probably be super helpful to the dev, if you actually pasted in those examples alongside suggestions for how it could be done better.

Obviously that's not for everyone, but it's probably more helpful and less demoralizing than just saying "I disliked your writing style," without pointing out how it could be improved. I imagine that's even more so the case with people who aren't writing in their native language.

Edit: I re-read that after I posted it... Not sure if it came across as a little snide, but that genuinely wasn't my intention. Just thought I'd point out that it's probably helpful.

 

[Zoran89]

Just two points, the main subject of the previous conversation was the word "Saintess", because this is used as a fantastic term applied to something that doesn't exist in our world, I think there is more tolerance to the rule here.

Well, there are female saints though in our world, and are being called just that. It's not like "saintess" has any other inherent meaning than just "female saint", and the fantasy subtext is only inferred because the word has been invented and used exclusively by JP->EN translators with fantasy manga. Had they used gender-neutral "Saint" to begin with, you wouldn't even consider that there's something wrong with using it for your work. Also, Japanese「聖女」could just as well be translated as "holy maiden" for example.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it is not my intention to chew you out for this or anything, nor to force you to change it now - You chose to use this, fine, I've seen worse on this site, other than that your writing is pretty good, so I'll get used to it. It's just that when I read that conversation earlier, it was like scratching an itch I didn't know I had, you know what I mean? I find that there's something weirdly satisfying about people actually making sure that they use proper vocabulary, rather than commonly used, but incorrect counterparts. It just feels like someone took time and effort to give their work that extra polish, and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside xD

It's more of a suggestion for any future projects you might be doing.

Also, regarding that tone comment, I thought more about the fight at the ceremony, but I guess it also applies to the Fae fight. And I don't want you to feel pressured to change anything on the spot, it's not really an issue of adding or removing jokes... How to best explain it...

Compare these two:

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This is the difference in tone I am talking about. Now, it's by no means an amazing piece of fiction, I wrote it in 30 minutes or something, but it should illustrate my point. Notice how there is still some attempt at humour in the second paragraph, but the overall tone stays tense - while the first one, though describing arguably the same event, does not give enough gravitas to the event, and is instead what I called, Saturday morning cartoon.

Again, not saying you should start writing gory details - I understand this is not that type of story - but if the danger you are presenting your characters with is grave enough to cause deaths of many, many people... Well, people who are presented with that danger should react accordingly, IMHO.

Obviously that's not for everyone, but it's probably more helpful and less demoralizing than just saying "I disliked your writing style," without pointing out how it could be improved. I imagine that's even more so the case with people who aren't writing in their native language.

Fair enough, though I never said I disliked his writing style.

For what it is, it's actually pretty good. My main issue is with the tone, as described above - It's difficult for me to just accept that you have a bunch of VIPs, most of whom have probably never seen combat in their lives, experience a violent attack, aimed at killing and maiming multiple people... And not give any reaction, while the security in charge is just nonchalantly like "Ah, well, gotta deal with this now". ESPECIALLY considering that you had a... prime minister, was it? As well as foreign royalty at the event, either of which getting hurt would cause MAJOR headaches for everyone. At least that's the tone I got from the event.

By no means am I trying to be demoralizing anyone - I know I can be harsh with some of my criticisms, but that's usually because I see some potential being unfulfilled... I've read... I've started reading a lot of trash on this site. Most I don't even bother commenting on - after all, if you screw up the pacing, the grammar, the characters, the premise itself... It's like, where do I even start with this?

By comparison, HIBBS has mostly pretty good writing and pacing so far, good character designs, well-done CGs, interesting enough premise and overall pretty fun sense of humour. It's not outstanding, but I can see the author being inspired by Japanese manga and VNs, and with this being his second work (with the first one being just a test run/remake of an already existing VN), this absolutely is good enough in my book. If I am pointing out issues which I see, it's only because I feel like he could improve in the future, so I just offer my ideas - what he does with them, it's entirely up to him. Nor am I expecting anyone to just mindlessly follow whatever I say.

As for vocabulary... You know, dictionaries exist. Plus, my initial comment regarding Saintess/Princedom and so on, I only said anything because the author mentioned that the "saintess" term is often used in manga translations - so I just felt like pointing out that that's usually not a very good argument, because there are a lot of people who use bad grammar, so it's always good to double-check.

 

[GrogGuy]

Fair enough, though I never said I disliked his writing style.

For what it is, it's actually pretty good. My main issue is with the tone, as described above - It's difficult for me to just accept that you have a bunch of VIPs, most of whom have probably never seen combat in their lives, experience a violent attack, aimed at killing and maiming multiple people... And not give any reaction, while the security in charge is just nonchalantly like "Ah, well, gotta deal with this now". ESPECIALLY considering that you had a... prime minister, was it? As well as foreign royalty at the event, either of which getting hurt would cause MAJOR headaches for everyone. At least that's the tone I got from the event.

By no means am I trying to be demoralizing anyone - I know I can be harsh with some of my criticisms, but that's usually because I see some potential being unfulfilled... I've read... I've started reading a lot of trash on this site. Most I don't even bother commenting on - after all, if you screw up the pacing, the grammar, the characters, the premise itself... It's like, where do I even start with this?

By comparison, HIBBS has mostly pretty good writing and pacing so far, good character designs, well-done CGs, interesting enough premise and overall pretty fun sense of humour. It's not outstanding, but I can see the author being inspired by Japanese manga and VNs, and with this being his second work (with the first one being just a test run/remake of an already existing VN), this absolutely is good enough in my book. If I am pointing out issues which I see, it's only because I feel like he could improve in the future, so I just offer my ideas - what he does with them, it's entirely up to him. Nor am I expecting anyone to just mindlessly follow whatever I say.

As for vocabulary... You know, dictionaries exist. Plus, my initial comment regarding Saintess/Princedom and so on, I only said anything because the author mentioned that the "saintess" term is often used in manga translations - so I just felt like pointing out that that's usually not a very good argument, because there are a lot of people who use bad grammar, so it's always good to double-check.

Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to imply you were actively trying to demoralize the dev or anything. While some of your complaints aren't really as bothersome to me as they evidently were to you, I also don't personally take issue with you mentioning them. I also think you make some fair points in your follow-up reply here as well, and the example you provided for differences in theme was a nice well thought out addition.

Honestly, I think this site tends to have a lot of negative comments that are a bit vague, so it's a bit of a reflexive response from me to think "hey, go into more detail so they know what you're actually talking about!" I'm not against harsh criticism, but I think it's a lot easier to complain about something than it is to do something. So in that regard, I tend to have the opinion that the harsher your criticism is, the more you should at least attempt to explain why it felt a certain way...

On that note though, it's not like I particularly had a strong response to your comment. It's just that I've seen lots of complaints about writing in other threads without them bothering to actually point out specific examples.

To address your last paragraph:

Overall, I agree. I don't think there's anything wrong with double-checking, and I don't really have any vested interest in the whole Saint vs Saintess debate myself. Additionally, I'll concede that my original post was a bit of a broadly directed comment to people who complain about wording. It probably wasn't fair of me to reply with that to you in particular.

I do disagree with this a bit though: "As for vocabulary... You know, dictionaries exist."
Everyone has different skill levels, different starting points, etc. I could just as easily say "as for Organic Chemistry, textbooks exist." Okay... that's probably not completely fair as a comparison, but hopefully it conveys the point. Yes, theoretically any individual person could master a language themselves given enough time and effort. Most one person devs are probably doing this in their free time though, and asking them all to develop perfect English before releasing any content and then implement it perfectly seems unnecessarily harsh to me. If it was that easy, proofreaders wouldn't be a thing. Granted, I've seen some games where the English is so bad, I wouldn't even know where to start... but I also think it's unfair to dismiss the effort involved in actually trying to write decently with "dictionaries exist." Besides all that, it's just a nice way to help out the dev and show support without spending any money haha.

Edit: Spelling, ironically enough. Oh another one. This conversation ended up making me self conscious about my own writing haha.

 

[tankie123]

just like 3 words away from having the japanese-like name of the game, so close yet so far > <

 

[Lunardis]

Well, there are female saints though in our world, and are being called just that. It's not like "saintess" has any other inherent meaning than just "female saint", and the fantasy subtext is only inferred because the word has been invented and used exclusively by JP->EN translators with fantasy manga. Had they used gender-neutral "Saint" to begin with, you wouldn't even consider that there's something wrong with using it for your work. Also, Japanese「聖女」could just as well be translated as "holy maiden" for example.

I agree on the translation part; and how it can deform the language. As for the rest, it's more a secondary point but... yes, there are 'female saint' but I dare to object that there aren't that many who have a magic sword and magical powers, who are reincarnated and fight dragons while giving interviews on TV.

To take an example, if you write a middle-aged realistic story with weapons called "swordds," people would have every right to complain because it would seem very weird to them.

On the other hand, if you write a fantasy story with special weapons that are swords, but can summon spirit of fire and thunder, and you choose to call them "swordds", I think this is much more acceptable.

Again, this doesn't mean I disagree with your point, I'm just explaining my previous comment.

And yes, I can understand the ‘itchy feeling’, I can get a little heated when it comes to my native language, so no problem...

This is the difference in tone I am talking about. Now, it's by no means an amazing piece of fiction, I wrote it in 30 minutes or something, but it should illustrate my point. Notice how there is still some attempt at humour in the second paragraph, but the overall tone stays tense - while the first one, though describing arguably the same event, does not give enough gravitas to the event, and is instead what I called, Saturday morning cartoon.

Again, not saying you should start writing gory details - I understand this is not that type of story - but if the danger you are presenting your characters with is grave enough to cause deaths of many, many people... Well, people who are presented with that danger should react accordingly, IMHO.

Well, I'm afraid this is turning a bit too much into a lengthy debate - for something that, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't something so heavy that it has ruined your experience with my game. So let's just say that I disagree with those specific examples and your conclusion.

I thought about explaining why, but I'm afraid it would deviate into stuff like: what is the correct reaction to violence for a fictional character, the need to emphasize the consequences of violence through writing (and the place of the graphic part in all this), the feeling the author wants to convey vs. what the reader expects to feel etc...

To summarize, I think this is an issue that can be a bit complex and where we probably won't have the same opinion. So let's just agree to disagree on this one?

I'll keep your comment in mind though. It's true that my story mix seriousness and humor, and I indeed have to be careful about how I want the reader to receive some scene. On this part, I agree with you.

 

[Ribbit-Rabbit]

Question for the developer. Do you listen to Braver Luck Life when coming up with the plot?

 

[Lunardis]

Question for the developer. Do you listen to Braver Luck Life when coming up with the plot?

Just listened and I liked it. It sounds really close to a specific character I am telling the story about

 

[Kalenz123]

Needs the no sexual content tag.

 

[molitar]

Needs the no sexual content tag.

Thanks for the warning.

 

[Boopeeman]

This is the best story on here. If this was a manga/anime I'd watch it. Writing was great but in the 3rd chapter there were quite a few small mistakes here and there (not engrish, just needed to be proofread). Question for the dev, will there ever be sexual content? Obviously with the *housemate* but will there also be sexual content with the *landlady* and other characters as well? If so it'll be a really slow burn. Was still fun to play/read so congratulations on that you should be proud of yourself.

 

[GrogGuy]

This is the best story on here. If this was a manga/anime I'd watch it. Writing was great but in the 3rd chapter there were quite a few small mistakes here and there (not engrish, just needed to be proofread). Question for the dev, will there ever be sexual content? Obviously with the *housemate* but will there also be sexual content with the *landlady* and other characters as well? If so it'll be a really slow burn. Was still fun to play/read so congratulations on that you should be proud of yourself.

To answer your question, according to the dev notes:
". . . one common route, then different paths, one for each heroine in the game. There are four heroines, so four paths.
The common route should be around four chapters. After that, I'll let people choose by vote the heroine they want me to work on. "

So paths for 4 of the characters. Probably Saintess, Witch, Commander, and Princess. No idea if there'll be scenes for other characters, but I kind of doubt it considering it doesn't seem to be a harem game.

 

[Lunardis]

This is the best story on here. If this was a manga/anime I'd watch it. Writing was great but in the 3rd chapter there were quite a few small mistakes here and there (not engrish, just needed to be proofread). Question for the dev, will there ever be sexual content? Obviously with the *housemate* but will there also be sexual content with the *landlady* and other characters as well? If so it'll be a really slow burn. Was still fun to play/read so congratulations on that you should be proud of yourself.

For now, only four routes are planned, one for each of the main heroines. I’m pretty open to add side routes for secondary characters. They’ll be more optional though, the story I want to tell will still be centered around the main heroines, but that could allow to romance other girls in the game.

Now that I think about it, it was a "bonus" that I was planning to add later in my goal, for Patreon/Subscribestar but… I’ve just added it now, it's better that way…



Now, let's just wait and see when/if we get there...

 

[Boopeeman]

For now, only four routes are planned, one for each of the main heroines. I’m pretty open to add side routes for secondary characters. They’ll be more optional though, the story I want to tell will still be centered around the main heroines, but that could allow to romance other girls in the game.

Now that I think about it, it was a "bonus" that I was planning to add later in my goal, for Patreon/Subscribestar but… I’ve just added it now, it's better that way…

View attachment 1995002

Now, let's just wait and see when/if we get there...

Honestly, as I was playing this some parts of me did not want this to be a porn game. I skip text on pretty much everything here, but yea I was captivated by this. So kudos for that. As for the other characters, if it doesn't look possible, secret galleries of patreon bonus content is always possible. And nice that you added the poll. Just keep working on it man people will notice it eventually.

 

[Lunardis]

Hello everyone! Like last time, I have a few thoughts I wanted to share with you regarding Chapter 3 and what is after...

Chapter 3 :

I hope you liked the last battle scene? So far, you've mostly seen the goofy Angelica, so I wanted to clearly show the side of her that is a little more badass... Angelica is someone who has already saved her country countless times before, while facing very strong opponents. I wanted to show that against Swordman.

The possibility of a romance between Angelica and our MC is a bit more obvious now. What I want with them is to present a dilemma between reason and passion, it's a theme that really interests me. At the end of the chapter, our two protagonists plan to stay away of each other... but of course things don't always turn out the way you want them to...

This chapter also focused a lot on Saki, our sword princess. She was a bit neglected in the second chapter, so it was nice to have her get a little more screen time. Needless to say, her conflict with Swordman will be developed a lot in her own route.

And so we have our enemies. So far, you've mostly seen Swordman. Unlike the Shadow Sorceress in Chapter 2, he's an opponent that will stay. There will be more battles with him. And as you could see, I intend to develop his past and his motivations. Same with the other S-level, of course.

Chapter 4 and after…

So, it's finally time for chapter 4. The last one of the common route. I can't express how happy I am to finally work on this chapter. Chapter 4 is probably the most important chapter in the whole story. Many key inventions will take place there. I would go so far as to say that you won't have a complete picture of the HIBTBS story until Chapter 4.

Of course, there are plenty of action scenes to come, chapter 3 was the beginning of the war, chapter 4 is when everyone will have to fight. Everyone will have a moment when he/she can shine.

And after that, the romance route with our heroines will finally begin. There's a lot to say, but I'll wait a bit. You’ll have a better idea of what I plan to do once chapter 4 is over.

Last point, some of you have complained that there is still no H-scene in v0.3. I understand the complaint. I'm very careful about this, of course this is an adult game, but it's more a story with H-scenes for me than the other way around, that's why I want to make sure that every adult scene is perfectly integrated into the plot, and feel not forced. But don't worry too much, adult content is coming very soon.

That's it for me. See you guys soon!

 

[Ulquiorra321]

Lunardis Take your time making the game, there are times that a story well written is better than a lot of H-scenes that feel too forced, there are a lot of games of that type on this site, if there are people that don't like, that's alright, we won't judge, they just have to search another H-game to play, that's all, till this point, I love your game, thanks (Just a suggestion, why don't you make a pool on this site to see which heroine or girl on the game is the favorite of everyone? My favorite character at the moment is Saki).

 

[Lunardis]

Lunardis Take your time making the game, there are times that a story well written is better than a lot of H-scenes that feel too forced, there are a lot of games of that type on this site, if there are people that don't like, that's alright, we won't judge, they just have to search another H-game to play, that's all, till this point, I love your game, thanks (Just a suggestion, why don't you make a pool on this site to see which heroine or girl on the game is the favorite of everyone? My favorite character at the moment is Saki).

Thanks for your comment. And don't worry, as I said before, the story and the characters are my priority. I'll do H scenes, but without forcing anything. Fortunately, there is one that is not far away. A scene that is actually very important in the story. With who? Well, you guys will have to wait...
I'm keeping in mind your idea of a poll. I'll have to see how to integrate this with the patreon polls that should appear later.
And I'm really glad to hear that you like Saki. She's a great character!

 

[Ribbit-Rabbit]

Would it be ok if I gave my clearly overthought speculation of the nature of the Goddess and her brother?

 

[Lunardis]

Would it be ok if I gave my clearly overthought speculation of the nature of the Goddess and her brother?

Sure, no problem. I probably won't confirm anything though, even if it's true. I don't want to spoil anything. But I'll be very happy to hear if anyone has any guesses about the story. Who knows, I may even drop a few hints... maybe...?

 

[AlexDark1027]

Sure, no problem. I probably won't confirm anything though, even if it's true. I don't want to spoil anything. But I'll be very happy to hear if anyone has any guesses about the story. Who knows, I may even drop a few hints... maybe...?

It means I can share my thoughts on the future story!

As I see it, every heroine in her route will have an adversary:
- Swordsman VS Saki and their tragic family story;
- Yohren VS Theresa and her traumatic memories of battle 5 years ago;
- Melope VS Ophelia (maybe?) as a fellow Cursed Witch but with MC as her friend and lover by her side;
- Saintess VS (TA-DAM!!!) everyone: Prime Minister, Goddess Lumina and the citizens of the Holydawn with their refusal to accept that Saintess is a girl who does not wish to die as an ultimate weapon but to love and be loved.

Regardless if I`m right or not in my guesses, I can`t wait to see how the story will unfold!

 

[Ribbit-Rabbit]

Sure, no problem. I probably won't confirm anything though, even if it's true. I don't want to spoil anything. But I'll be very happy to hear if anyone has any guesses about the story. Who knows, I may even drop a few hints... maybe...?

Ok.

I believe that Chaos and Lumina were once a part of a much greater pantheon of gods. This Pantheon created the world the story they place on. However, due to time and much later in-fighting Chaos and Lumina were the only gods left. Rather than kill each other and rule the world in isolation the two would come together to rule as they see fit. The war exists to strengthen the mortal races and prove whose ideology is the best path forward until the war.

Chaos beliefs are; Freedom and Individualism over the collective. While his champions are far from the most stable they are not crazy (barring Swordsman) the freedom Chaos gives is absolute; Law and Order are allowed as much as endless mayhem. Just accept the fact you may die if you double cross or infringe on others' freedom. This is why Melope can betray Chaos despite being one of his champions.

Lumina is about love, unity, and duty. I don't have to talk about the positives about these but the negatives can be seen with the PM and others view the Saintess. Without someone to love the Saintess either as a lover, daughter or mother she will turn into something worst than a weapon, she will into a tool for others like the PM to gain power and dominion over other countries.

anyways that was my theory hope everyone enjoyed it.