VN Ren'Py Isabella - Chasing Shadows [Ch. 4.3] [badtimetales]

[Grumpy Old Aussie]

Come on, that wasn't so hard (compared to the original idea I had in mind).
But yeah, maybe I can add a "Skip emotional scene" button.

It's fine, it was those puppy dog eyes that got me. That made it a very emotional scene for me, but thats okay, I like stories that stir the emotions.

 

[Joshy92]

It's fine, it was those puppy dog eyes that got me. That made it a very emotional scene for me, but thats okay, I like stories that stir the emotions.

I agree completely a story without emotion is not a good story imo.

 

[Finuee]

The original planned scene was much more emotional.

Now Alex just walks to the window, comes back and says "ok, thanks to be honest".
My first idea would have been an emotional disaster.

It's all about character building, but I didn't wanted to feel people bad about the decision to dump her.
I still did, but believe me, that was the softest way I could do it.
People said "Too much drama for me". So be it.


At least how I see Alex and the MC and their past.

Honestly, the fact people fear that moment as too emotionally scarring is to me a sign that the story is well written. Even if people fear those moments, those are what elevate the story and make you care.

It's fine, it was those puppy dog eyes that got me. That made it a very emotional scene for me, but thats okay, I like stories that stir the emotions.

I agree completely a story without emotion is not a good story imo.

As shown here

 

[badtimetales]

Of course, the major flaws in this game are the lack of incest, lolis, ntr, planet sized boobs and cartoon characters. It's sad really. It could have been such a great game.

no Futa's?? anime Girls ??? head pats , hand holding , nose boops wtf ???

I want harem, why does this game make me choose? Noooooo

Yeah, message to new devs: Do what the audience want, not what you want.
If you want money instead of having fun creating the game.

Monster girls. Though an angry Alex might qualify

That might be true.

lol BTT is gonna come into this thread be like sigh what is in the water today since the usual suspects are being goofy idiots lol

Na, it's more or less the same people writing here and I know them quite well by now
Thanks for being here.

We don't know Isa as well yet, but she's smart and a little lonely ( I think) with a very complicated relationship to her family.

does she actually have any family other the uncle? Parents are dead but other that not sure.

True. Grandparents? She's young, some of them should reasonably still be alive.

Parents died in an accident.
Grandparents are long dead.

Only known (by now) family is the uncle.
But Isa's family situation will be shown in Chapter 5.
Wil is working on it And some in game hints too.

BTT, I'm afraid Alex may get upset with all this focus on Val suddenly. To make her happy, could we get a scene where she and MC are in town holding hands.
Joshy would probably be happy too, though I'm not sure we want to encourage him too much.

Hand holding and kissing is a nightmare to pose.
Especially with what Daz calls a hand rigging

Some lesbian scenes are way easier.

Joshy is busy with another girl

Ok, no lesbian scenes for Joshy.
The girls told me they removed the cam. Sorry. You know how they are.

haha sometimes almost feels like BTT should make a skip sad crying Alex scene button

Anyway, in regard to the Alex break up scene I actually wouldn't have minded if it was even more emotional. This game already had me in tears after the first few minutes, so I already knew it was an emotional story.

Honestly, the fact people fear that moment as too emotionally scarring is to me a sign that the story is well written. Even if people fear those moments, those are what elevate the story and make you care.

Yes and no.
The breakup scene is there because it was needed.
First version of it really got emotional.
Until I realized that I did it that way to punish the people who said "I hate Alex", "I hate forced relationship" and so on.

But that would have been unfair and wouldn't have helped me in any way.
Alex was loved by this time in the development, or hated already.
No reason to multiply this feelings with a really "how can you break the girls heart" scene.

So I changed it to this "easy" scene.
There have been people saying "Thanks, no, I play games to escape the real world" (because of the dark beginning).
There have been people who stopped supporting me because of the easy decision to drop Alex or not.

Well, it's not a game for you, thanks for the support (if you ever supported), there are thousands of other games out there.

My story.
Just that I learned not to give too much on minority opinions.

That's not meant to sound arrogant, but in my opinion the only way is to tell your story.
Or you tell what the audience wants to hear/see.

And that's not happening.

 

[Dessolos]

Hand holding and kissing is a nightmare to pose.
Especially with what Daz calls a hand rigging

Well that wasn't a no to head pats and nose boops

 

[badtimetales]

Well that wasn't a no to head pats and nose boops

Not even a no hand holding

 

[Finuee]

That's not meant to sound arrogant, but in my opinion the only way is to tell your story.
Or you tell what the audience wants to hear/see.

Agreed, you either tell your story, or tell a story without a soul. Which can be successful, mind you, just see most movies. But it'll still be soulless.

So I applaud your decision.

 

[badtimetales]

Agreed, you either tell your story, or tell a story without a soul. Which can be successful, mind you, just see most movies. But it'll still be soulless.

So I applaud your decision.

As a dev, you will have to make the decision between your story or money.
(Don't know your game)

 

[Finuee]

As a dev, you will have to make the decision between your story or money.
(Don't know your game)

My decision is to not do it for money at all. But it's not really my game, I'm part of a team of three and I deal just with the technical side while another person does the writing. So I'm not in charge of the decisions, story wise.

I do intend to create something of my own once we're done with this current project. And one thing I'm pretty sure about: I don't want to turn this into a second job, so I don't intend to charge for it.

 

[Finuee]

Oh rereading my post, I realize it sounds a bit high horse-ish. So I'd like to make clear I have nothing against getting paid for your game. And I have nothing against people making decisions for monetary reasons. I just think the games that follow a vision have more to them, and are more special. But that doesn't mean I criticize those decisions that are made for financial reasons, and I fully understand them.

 

[badtimetales]

Oh rereading my post, I realize it sounds a bit high horse-ish. So I'd like to make clear I have nothing against getting paid for your game. And I have nothing against people making decisions for monetary reasons. I just think the games that follow a vision have more to them, and are more special. But that doesn't mean I criticize those decisions that are made for financial reasons, and I fully understand them.

Isa was never meant to "make me rich".
But with a few thousands USD for assets and even more for hardware, I (and every dev) needs some cash coming in.

Not to mention electricity bills and so on.

 

[Dessolos]

Not to mention electricity bills and so on.

Haha whenever I think about Dev's and their Electricity Bills this comes to my mind

 

[Finuee]

Isa was never meant to "make me rich".
But with a few thousands USD for assets and even more for hardware, I (and every dev) needs some cash coming in.

Not to mention electricity bills and so on.

Of course. That's why I wanted to amend my first post, because I think it came off as if I thought people should "do the arts for free" or something similar. Not at all. I understand the costs and I firmly believe that people deserve to get paid for their work.

When I said I didn't want to get paid, I meant it as a personal choice, not as the "right choice". And when I talked about games becoming soulless, I meant it regarding games where the only deciding factor is monetary, those "written by committee".

At no point did I mean to criticize neither people charging for their games, nor people making choices with their audience's tastes in mind. Both are sensible and perfectly fine.

 

[Joshy92]

That's part of why I respect you so much BTT. You're telling the story you want to tell.

 

[Grumpy Old Aussie]

Yeah, message to new devs: Do what the audience want, not what you want.
If you want money instead of having fun creating the game.

Whats this? You're not making it for me personally with the girls I want, the kinks I want and the story I want. Come on Dev get with the program. It's all about meeeeeeeeee.

On a serious note, I think you should always go with originality over opinions/preferences. I watched more than a few VNs get lost or abandoned because the dev decided to try and please everyone and it turned in to a disaster. There is the occasional exception but that should be the exception rather than the rule. I know with one VN for example, the dev does he owns thing, but he made a decision that was unanimously hated. He listened and made a small change to that and it turned out great. I don't want to say which VN, but I'm happy to pm you if you want details.

In saying that, the one exception is my opinion, of course, because it's the only one that matters, just letting you know

 

[Old Grumpy Wolf]

First version of it really got emotional.
Until I realized that I did it that way to punish the people who said "I hate Alex", "I hate forced relationship" and so on.

But that would have been unfair and wouldn't have helped me in any way.
Alex was loved by this time in the development, or hated already.
No reason to multiply this feelings with a really "how can you break the girls heart" scene.

So I changed it to this "easy" scene.
There have been people saying "Thanks, no, I play games to escape the real world" (because of the dark beginning).
There have been people who stopped supporting me because of the easy decision to drop Alex or not.

You know how I feel about that. I mean this from the bottom of my heart: Fuck their feelings and fuck them. Some of those people are cool af, but a break up is meant to be emotional and painful. Should've kept the original version of it.

 

[Krytax123]

You know how I feel about that. I mean this from the bottom of my heart: Fuck their feelings and fuck them. Some of those people are cool af, but a break up is meant to be emotional and painful. Should've kept the original version of it.

I kinda disagree (dont care this much tbh) because the player didnt had a choice about the relationship.

I would get your pov if the player decides to enter the relationship just to decide to break up afterards (like you know ... the big game with the throuple and j***). But having to endure the fallout and heartbreak from a girl you would have never started a relationship with in the first place is (as the dev realized himself) just more of the same annoying and feels "undeserved".

 

[AlexMpog]

...
My story.
Just that I learned not to give too much on minority opinions.

That's not meant to sound arrogant, but in my opinion the only way is to tell your story.
Or you tell what the audience wants to hear/see.

And that's not happening.

Sorry for late response, went to bed

Just wanted to say that for me personally the most trustworthy Developer is the one who always sticks to his own vision of the game. I know that sometimes when you don't cater demands of audience - it means less income... that's cruel reality indeed.

Yes, there might be some minor issues in a game down the road, in this case Devs can use some feedback from players to fix those, but that's it. The main moments/story should always be only up to Dev, this is your game.
Even if it means that this game is not for me for some reasons (not talking about Isa of course) - that's fine, you can't satisfy everybody, I will just move on, but you still will have my great respect.

On this note - it really pains me to see how some games with an amazing story and great characters are in a shadows, while some others (let's call them fuckfests) are insanely popular, oh well, again - cruel reality.

Also about Alex and her break up scene. While I am not really a fan of forced relationships I must agree with Old Grumpy Wolf, every decision should have consequences, wanna break up, well then you get a bitter scene, this is how it goes in reality and that's why it makes your characters so believable.
But, your reasoning - to punish players for hating Alex.. - hahah, well, that's tough, I wasn't in this thread from the beginning so I can only assume that crowd really got under your skin, I just wanna say that there're people here, who don't really hate Alex (she doesn't deserve it anyway) but just like other LIs more and want to try other routes as well.

And sorry for my gibberish english, just woke up recently and still haven't finished my coffee

 

[badtimetales]

There is the occasional exception but that should be the exception rather than the rule. I know with one VN for example, the dev does he owns thing, but he made a decision that was unanimously hated. He listened and made a small change to that and it turned out great. I don't want to say which VN, but I'm happy to pm you if you want details.

Yes, there might be some minor issues in a game down the road, in this case Devs can use some feedback from players to fix those, but that's it. The main moments/story should always be only up to Dev, this is your game.

Just to be clear, if it's about inconsistencies, mistakes in the story a a poorly done scene, I'm more than happy to get feedback.
That's why I'm changing the "beta testing" with the current development.

Hearing some opinions before a release

But the original idea... Yeah, my story.

And Grumpy Old Aussie, sure, PM me or discord.

I wasn't in this thread from the beginning so I can only assume that crowd really got under your skin, I just wanna say that there're people here, who don't really hate Alex

It was a vocal minority and they didn't really got under my skin, it was more an annoyance.
I would do a lot things in a different way now, including not being in a "relationship" with Alex from the start. She could have helped the MC without sex. But the girls would be the same like they are now

 

[Joshy92]

Yeah, the forced sex with Alex at the start could turn some people off heck usually that sort of thing annoys me too, but it was early in the story before the mc started building relationships with Alex or Isa, so I don't consider it a bad thing here.

And it fits with the mc's character at that point as well I mean he was just coasting along trying to shut his feelings off, but Alex helped him love again which is a part of the story I love.