Ren'Py I-Patch Word Replacement Help

[IJustWantToAskQuestions]

For obvious reasons, I’d like to make an I-patch in Ren’Py, but I need some help. I’m not exactly sure what words I should be using. I know there are more advanced patches out there, but my goal is to make a very simple patch that just replaces certain words.


What do you think would be good replacements for family members? Most are obvious, but I feel like I might need a few extra terms.

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Now, I still need suitable replacements for brother and cousin. Could you suggest a couple of words for those? Or, if you think there’s a more consistent system for all family members, feel free to suggest that instead.


Here’s what my original plan was: I was going to assign some placeholder letters, for example:

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That way, later on in the patch, I could just do:

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But now I’m having doubts. If someone checks the game’s code, my intention might be too obvious (or at least that’s what I think). That could potentially cause problems with Patreon later. That’s why I considered switching to the first system I mentioned above. What do you think? The second method is definitely better in terms of organization, but it feels riskier.


Also, just to clarify: I’m aware there are far more advanced and effective methods of making patches. I’ve read a few posts about them, but honestly, they’re way beyond my current coding knowledge. I don’t think I can pull that off, at least not for my first game. I also realize that simply swapping names can sometimes make the story feel inconsistent, and that rewriting lines would make more sense but that’s another discussion.


I’d be really grateful if you could help me out.

 

[79flavors]

I’m aware there are far more advanced and effective methods of making patches. I’ve read a few posts about them, but honestly, they’re way beyond my current coding knowledge.

I doubt one of my examples could be seen as "advanced", so I'll offer it up:
https://f95zone.to/threads/renaming-the-characters.95716/post-6769832

While not easy to write from scratch, I hope it's easy enough to follow as a simple "replace <this line> with <that line>" and "replace <this word> with <that word>".

Mostly it's aimed at replacing words. But as you say, sometimes just swapping words makes things a little incoherent. That's when you swap whole sentences.

I wouldn't worry too much about Patreon reading your code. I've always assumed they simply work from people reporting games with things like screenshots. But I could be wrong. What I would say is there's an increasing number of Steam games out there written in RenPy where the game has variables for relationships - then offers to let the players override those relationships. The whole "landlady/roommate" defaults make no sense once you start playing the game and anyone with any sense can recognize that the wording is supposed to be "mother/sister" - but the game ships as a largely vanilla(enough) game - so don't get too much attention. Additionally, unless you grow your game beyond a certain size - I doubt you'd find yourself on their radar. I've literally played a game recently that has a "Am I running using Steam" flag - where certain code and dialogue is skipped if the flag is set to True.

All that said, it's not my money and I've never written a game. So I don't have to live with the consequences to being wrong. Do what you think is right - just don't overthink it... it'll suck all the fun out of writing your story.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I wouldn't worry too much about Patreon reading your code. I've always assumed they simply work from people reporting games with things like screenshots. But I could be wrong.

I guess it's more along the line of reports going: "When asked for your relationship with one character, enter 'mother' then many text will change to match that incestuous relationship."

What mean that, the less obvious is the way to make this change, the more easily a creator will be in position to defend himself.
Something like:

label whatever:
    if mom_relationship == "mother":
       mom "You're my son, how do you dare to imply that we could be sexually involved together?"
   else:
       mom "As your landlady, I feel that it would be inappropriate that we pursue such kind of relationship."

Will nukes all your chances.


But a game with a patch relying on

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or

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:

init python:
    incestVersion = { 
        "As your landlady, I feel that it would be inappropriate that we pursue such kind of relationship.": "You're my son, how do you dare to imply that we could be sexually involved together?",
        [...] }

    def myReplace( text ):
        if text in incestVersion:
            return incestVersion[text]
        else:
            return text

    config.replace_text = myReplace

define mom = Character( "Mom" )

and a game being:

label whatever:
   mom "As your landlady, I feel that it would be inappropriate that we pursue such kind of relationship."

Can be saved. The creator is not responsible, it's a third person who decided to make a patch that permit to turn the game into incest.

Also something to note:
While Patreon do not check the source by itself, if the report include "and when you look at the code of the game, you see that the variable are named 'mom_relationship' and 'mom'", they'll look at the code to verify if it's true... And like it will be, no way to pretend that the patch is made by a third person.

 

[IJustWantToAskQuestions]

I checked out an incest patch of a game and it actually used the exact method I was originally thinking of, but didn’t dare to try. The code looks something like this:

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It seems like the dev hasn’t had any issues with Patreon. Do you think this approach is reliable? If it’s really safe, I’d like to use it too. But what if someone reports my game to Patreon and they check my code, wouldn’t they find it suspicious if they saw something like this?

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It feels a bit strange. Why go through the trouble of defining these words instead of just using them directly? I’m not sure if it goes against the rules, but it looks like there are games out there already using this system.

 

[anne O'nymous]

It seems like the dev hasn’t had any issues with Patreon.

As said, Patreon works on report, so as long as the dev do not piss off the wrong person, his game is safe. There's few games with full incest that stayed on Patreon for years, until completion, without problems.
But of course it's a risk, at anytime you can piss off the wrong person and this just by not putting the content that person want to see in your game. I don't remember the thread, but one dev pointed to a guy who blackmailed him to remove something from his game; "Do it or I'll report your game to Patreon".

Do you think this approach is reliable?

No because of the cust_mod=True.
It's what I talked about above. The game have direct branching in its code. So, it suffice for someone to report it to Patreon by saying, "there's no need for an external file, it suffice to set the 'cust_mod' variable at True, to get incest content".
And there's no way for you to pretend that it's due to a third person modding your game.

But what if someone reports my game to Patreon and they check my code, wouldn’t they find it suspicious if they saw something like this?

They don't need to check the code. Turning the right variable at True then playing the game until the first dialog line that present the characters as blood related will be enough.