VN Ren'Py It's Just a Game [v0.3.2] [DigiDec]

[Hungover00]

I appreciate that.

And yeah, I didn't want it to be a deeply upsetting experience for the player, but feeling something like slight annoyance or frustration over knowing that they're missing a piece of the larger puzzle kind of matches my intent.

Calling it hostile game design seems a little unfair, although we might have different definitions for that term. I'm not punishing you for your choice, I'm not using the threat of punishment to steer your decision, and I never did anything to build an expectation that you would be looking in on everything the girls do. Unless you view any choice that results in the exclusion of the options not taken as a punishment. No one is saying the choice between hooking up with Zoe at the club or making it to the meeting with Ness on time was a bad design decision, and from my perspective, I struggle to see the difference.

Maybe I'm not communicating effectively, maybe I am and some of you just 100% disagree with me, maybe we're all pointing at the moon while looking at each other's fingers.

This conversation has got me thinking about how I would have done things differently to maintain the overall experience I was shooting for without forcing the player to choose, and the first answer that comes to mind is to remove the choice entirely. Instead, I'd just have had it so only 1 girl happened to be logged into her sim when the MC was testing things and I'd give the player 1 look into each of the 3 different sims. Obviously, it's too late for that. If I had done it that way from the start I don't think there'd be a single complaint, but I'm not going to go back and remove content.

I do a lot of tweaks and rewrites to control things like pacing and tone which means that part of my decision to limit you to just 1 sim at a time involved me playing through that portion over and over again until I decided which works best. But you are all welcome to enjoy the game on your own terms. I don't mind if you guys want to save/reload to look at every possible scene or download mods to let you do it all in one playthrough.

You can view the version I released as the director's cut.

Eh, you could probably edit it, change the before. Personally I think 2 people per session would work, that could be a nice portfolio for the character sims.

But as it is now, works. So no need to change anything.

 

[RandomGuy99]

At the beginning of 0.3 did you have the little chat with Izzi or did you tell her to fuck off? If you had the chat, she mentions some things that might fill in some of the missing puzzle pieces.

I will look at making a gallery for the game. I intend to get it up on Steam at some point and I think some QoL improvements like that will make the game seem more like a professional product instead of a clusterfuck of nonsense slapped hastily together by a complete amateur.

Yes, i've checked all 3 options. Izzi did mentioned she change the definition of what a game is to Qai and mentioned she was somewhat in control. I'm assuming Qai now consider real life a game as well and forcefully push MC into a simulation but what does it have to do with my statement? I was stating the color tint was not that obvious since we are jumping between multiple scenes. We not sure if all of them is MC's simulation or some scene was "an off MC character scene" of real life since there is no color tint comparison in some of them. Also MC is hearing the comments from the doctor which makes it a bit confusing.

I was wondering if Qai will every do an Agent Smith? AI take over one of the real life character?
I'm assuming Izzi's changes to the code and Qai perception somehow made her corrupt the LIs much faster and indirectly clashing with MC's wishes

 

[DigiDec]

Yes, i've checked all 3 options. Izzi did mentioned she change the definition of what a game is to Qai and mentioned she was somewhat in control. I'm assuming Qai now consider real life a game as well and forcefully push MC into a simulation but what does it have to do with my statement? I was stating the color tint was not that obvious since we are jumping between multiple scenes. We not sure if all of them is MC's simulation or some scene was "an off MC character scene" of real life since there is no color tint comparison in some of them. Also MC is hearing the comments from the doctor which makes it a bit confusing.

I was wondering if Qai will every do an Agent Smith? AI take over one of the real life character?
I'm assuming Izzi's changes to the code and Qai perception somehow made her corrupt the LIs much faster and indirectly clashing with MC's wishes

A thing to note is that right after MC gets the new implant and they connect it to the network I made a point of changing the coloring and even drew your attention to it by having the MC comment on it. So, you won't really be able to use that to distinguish between sim and reality, unless I work in some stuff where maybe the implant glitches off momentarily or I do a couple camera shots showing what things would look like from the perspective of someone without an implant. Not that those are techniques I plan on using or anything...

 

[RandomGuy99]

A thing to note is that right after MC gets the new implant and they connect it to the network I made a point of changing the coloring and even drew your attention to it by having the MC comment on it. So, you won't really be able to use that to distinguish between sim and reality, unless I work in some stuff where maybe the implant glitches off momentarily or I do a couple camera shots showing what things would look like from the perspective of someone without an implant. Not that those are techniques I plan on using or anything...

Okay so the goal is have the MC stuck in simulation perceptually or making MC confuse between reality and simulation ?
I mean you can make the MC be confuse without us players be confuse right ?

Not sure the direction for this. Just make sure it's obvious to players since now no body knows what is off screen reality or just crazy simulation stuff. Otherwise, you be getting a lot of stupid questions like what i am asking now. In terms of story telling, you can have certain scenes where you want the players to wonder whether MC/characters is an unreliable narrator but never make it that the player feel if they are an unreliable reader/viewer.

 

[SASHAKAMEN]

wow just wow. One of the most promising games on this site i ever seen. first time i see dom male mc being one who gets currupted in such unique way. and of course it has my favorite kinks in one game. Really appreciate your work Mr.DigiDec

 

[DigiDec]

Okay so the goal is have the MC stuck in simulation perceptually or making MC confuse between reality and simulation ?
I mean you can make the MC be confuse without us players be confuse right ?

Not sure the direction for this. Just make sure it's obvious to players since now no body knows what is off screen reality or just crazy simulation stuff. Otherwise, you be getting a lot of stupid questions like what i am asking now. In terms of story telling, you can have certain scenes where you want the players to wonder whether MC/characters is an unreliable narrator but never make it that the player feel if they are an unreliable reader/viewer.

Edit - I'll answer the question again if anyone asks but I'm removing the answer to save you all from temptation.

 

[ufsmt]

Possible bug.
To get the kn1 scene, you need to follow a really specific path, because you get 4 variables above 'jump kn1' that skips kn1 and leads you directly to cof2.. and cof2 is ALSO the fallback 'else' option if all the variables are somehow 0.

 

[RandomGuy99]

Not huge but still spoilery -

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You damn tease

 

[DigiDec]

Possible bug.
To get the kn1 scene, you need to follow a really specific path, because you get 4 variables above 'jump kn1' that skips kn1 and leads you directly to cof2.. and cof2 is ALSO the fallback 'else' option if all the variables are somehow 0.

This isn't a bug (I think). To get that scene you have to avoid hooking up with anyone before the scene where Nat gets freaky with you on the couch, but also play along with Nat when she gets freaky with you on the couch. So the if-else there is first checking to see if you hooked up with anyone else, if you did we go to coffee with Sara, then I check to see if you played along with Nat on the couch, if you did we go to massage scene, if not we go to coffee with Sara. I tried running through it every way I could to make sure it worked the way I wanted but I might have missed something, so let me know if you feel like you should've gotten the massage scene but you didn't.

 

[ufsmt]

This isn't a bug (I think).

Ahh ok. Specific path it is then. I though perhaps the 'jump kn1' bit was supposed to be at the top, or maybe all the 'jump cof2' were supposed to be 'jump kn1' or something.

I kind of cheated and got the kn1 scene anyway, but there's no way I'd get it on a legit playthough .

 

[DigiDec]

Ahh ok. Specific path it is then. I though perhaps the 'jump kn1' bit was supposed to be at the top, or maybe all the 'jump cof2' were supposed to be 'jump kn1' or something.

I kind of cheated and got the kn1 scene anyway, but there's no way I'd get it on a legit playthough .

No worries, I said before you are all welcome to enjoy the game on your own terms. I just felt bad that the players who were staying loyal to Nat missed out on some sexy times so I wanted to make it up to them a little.

 

[DigiDec]

Okay, got some feedback on Discord that suggested I should push things a little further with simbo Mol. Same as before - from left to right - real, upcoming real, sim.

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Too much? Not enough?

 

[enzo ferrari]

Not enough

 

[Lerd0]

Okay, got some feedback on Discord that suggested I should push things a little further with simbo Mol. Same as before - from left to right - real, upcoming real, sim.

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Too much? Not enough?

 

[enzo ferrari]

Also reading the dev notes mc Will get lesbian cucked. Why NTR is not on the game tags who fucking knows

 

[DigiDec]

Bimbo Mol fans be like

 

[DigiDec]

Also reading the dev notes mc Will get lesbian cucked. Why NTR is not on the game tags who fucking knows

So, we're not going to get into a debate regarding tags because that's against the site's rules and I am also so very tired of it but I will clarify my philosophy here.

Any sexual activity between characters other than the MC will be happening only if the MC has okayed it in some way, or if there is no reasonable expectation that the MC would have/feel some type of claim over the specific woman. The stuff with Zoe is a good example, maybe you as a player really like her, want to see more of her, wish she'd become something like a girlfriend to the MC, but if you hooked up with a random girl at a club before even learning her name and then you get jealous about the fact that she's already in an ongoing sexual relationship with another woman - you didn't get cucked and that's not NTR.

I know we all have different specific definitions so I can't tell any of you if everything I put in this game will meet your approval.

 

[MixQQ]

Also reading the dev notes mc Will get lesbian cucked. Why NTR is not on the game tags who fucking knows

he still has loyal Natalie, who wants her bull to dominate every girl and make them his sluts..

but in some avns on this site i played, mc sometimes really get cucked, when girls have lesbian fun, mc want to join and they reject him and he is forced to leave or watch and jerk off. Fortunately shit like this is rare

 

[Axelfire]

I for one fully approve the new sim version.

 

[DigiDec]

he still has loyal Natalie, who wants her bull to dominate every girl and make them his sluts..

but in some avns on this site i played, mc sometimes really get cucked, when girls have lesbian fun, mc want to join and they reject him and he is forced to leave or watch and jerk off. Fortunately shit like this is rare

Yeah, I'm not planning on anything like that scenario. Closest we might come to that would be some girls kind of teasing the MC by making him watch at first but it would end with the MC joining in. That's a hypothetical, I don't have anything specific like this planned out but I could sort of see it work for a few of the characters. Like maybe Mol and Candi, Izzi and Zoe, or Ness and whichever girl she gets her hands on.