VN Ren'Py Jezebel [Ep. 2 v2.03 BugFix] [Mr. Pengo]

[JagOvv SmearOvv]

Hot damn, thanks to Saikey for leading me to this game. Another favorite I'm following now! My others that I'm following now are:

• Heartsworn Abyss (I'm actually proofreading and bug-testing for this one haha)
• Henteria Chronicles 3
• Falling Undercover: Nox Syndicate
• Vulgar Reverie
• Maya's Mission
• He Maid Her Fall
• NTR Mobile
• Whispers of Desire

You've written a great lead character in Duvessa! Starting out, I felt really bad playing as such a manipulative, unscrupulous woman that accused her brother of murder. I didn't want him to be sacrificed for her ambitions. I felt horrible for Veska being used as a tool--having to seduce Dedrick under false pretenses, being made to frame him after she fell for him, having her family threatened, and being sucked back into Duvessa's schemes.

But then I just started getting more into how Duvessa thought and operated. She's unapologetically herself. She doesn't pretend that she's noble or altruistic. She's upfront with her ambitions while still being sneaky and cunning. Eventually, I started thinking about what would be in her best interest. I wanted her to succeed. To forge new alliances, uncover mysteries, make risky gambits, break her enemies, and use her body at every opportunity.

I am playing a more submissive Duvessa to see how she can be humiliated, used, and overpowered. Hee hee~

I also greatly appreciate the custom UI. Some of my favorite Ren'py games still use default textboxes, fonts, and others. You made it look like your game and not a Ren'py game. Kudos.

There are some points where my eyes sort of glaze with the small talk, and it gets hard to keep up with all the names, families, locations, and such. I can't keep it all in my head who's most plot-relevant and how they relate to Duvessa and others. Perhaps I should read the Encyclopedia more, but I'd like a sort of graphical illustration of who's who and what their relations are. It'd probably a wide one. Also, a gallery unlocker and hints for what the locked CGs and scenes are and how to obtain them in-game.

Spoiler: Spoilers

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[Mr. Pengo]

Hot damn, thanks to Saikey for leading me to this game. Another favorite I'm following now! My others that I'm following now are:

• Heartsworn Abyss (I'm actually proofreading and bug-testing for this one haha)
• Henteria Chronicles 3
• Falling Undercover: Nox Syndicate
• Vulgar Reverie
• Maya's Mission
• He Maid Her Fall
• NTR Mobile
• Whispers of Desire

You've written a great lead character in Duvessa! Starting out, I felt really bad playing as such a manipulative, unscrupulous woman that accused her brother of murder. I didn't want him to be sacrificed for her ambitions. I felt horrible for Veska being used as a tool--having to seduce Dedrick under false pretenses, being made to frame him after she fell for him, having her family threatened, and being sucked back into Duvessa's schemes.

But then I just started getting more into how Duvessa thought and operated. She's unapologetically herself. She doesn't pretend that she's noble or altruistic. She's upfront with her ambitions while still being sneaky and cunning. Eventually, I started thinking about what would be in her best interest. I wanted her to succeed. To forge new alliances, uncover mysteries, make risky gambits, break her enemies, and use her body at every opportunity.

I am playing a more submissive Duvessa to see how she can be humiliated, used, and overpowered. Hee hee~

I also greatly appreciate the custom UI. Some of my favorite Ren'py games still use default textboxes, fonts, and others. You made it look like your game and not a Ren'py game. Kudos.

There are some points where my eyes sort of glaze with the small talk, and it gets hard to keep up with all the names, families, locations, and such. I can't keep it all in my head who's most plot-relevant and how they relate to Duvessa and others. Perhaps I should read the Encyclopedia more, but I'd like a sort of graphical illustration of who's who and what their relations are. It'd probably a wide one. Also, a gallery unlocker and hints for what the locked CGs and scenes are and how to obtain them in-game.

Spoiler: Spoilers

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Thanks much for the kind words! That sort of graphical illustration is precisely the sort of thing I'd like to make when I can afford to do more secondary content like that. I'd like to do a detailed family tree for each of the 8 (basically 7 at the moment) main houses for sure. As I said on the last page of this thread the NSFW guide for Episode 2 is coming soon!

 

[JagOvv SmearOvv]

I wonder if there will be lasting consequences for agreeing to Griffin's Beak's demands. I sympathized for them and accepted all of their terms (also hoped this would make Duvessa more submissive to the villagers and to Jasen). I could see how allowing the serfs to buy their freedom could bite Devereux in the ass later. That could open the door for other Houses to buy their serfs from them in an effort to weaken their tax income.

 

[Mr. Pengo]

Episode Two NSFW Scene Guide has been added to the OP, my friends! Thank you thank you

 

[dragoonknight1221999]

I think I figured out what makes this game seem to stand out amongst other visual novels outside of having good writing and characters and stuff. This game is very similar in design to Good Girl Gone Bad. and what I mean by that, is that it's found that sweet spot where choices clearly matter and change things while still hitting the same story beats which is something GGGB excelled at. this allows different play throughs to feel vastly different if different choices are made, without the story having to branch out in wildly different directions causing delays in certain storylines, a bunch of dead ends, etc. like, I feel like I'm having troubles putting into words what I'm trying to explain, but GGGB has been a go to for me when I don't know what else I feel like playing and having tried out some different options in this game to see how things could play out, I feel like it can fill a very similar niche.

 

[dragoonknight1221999]

I am playing a more submissive Duvessa to see how she can be humiliated, used, and overpowered. Hee hee~

Spoiler: Spoilers

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As someone else who has been most enjoying playing a sub Duvessa, and am a big fan of the storyline with her father I recommend trying out a different path you can get with him (explained how in the guide). If you are anything like me you will love it. Specifically the one where,

Spoiler

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[Mr. Pengo]

I think I figured out what makes this game seem to stand out amongst other visual novels outside of having good writing and characters and stuff. This game is very similar in design to Good Girl Gone Bad. and what I mean by that, is that it's found that sweet spot where choices clearly matter and change things while still hitting the same story beats which is something GGGB excelled at. this allows different play throughs to feel vastly different if different choices are made, without the story having to branch out in wildly different directions causing delays in certain storylines, a bunch of dead ends, etc. like, I feel like I'm having troubles putting into words what I'm trying to explain, but GGGB has been a go to for me when I don't know what else I feel like playing and having tried out some different options in this game to see how things could play out, I feel like it can fill a very similar niche.

I mean I think Eva Kiss is the GOAT of the medium/greatest understander of what makes good pornography and GGGB is the best game on this website so you won't hear any argument from me.

You could definitely say that what I'm trying to do is a more story-oriented version of the games they make. My philosophy has always been that the more you care about the story the hotter the sex scenes are; probably one of the big reasons why Game of Thrones was such a successful TV show to begin with.

 

[AMR39]

I loved this update!

So many beautiful new women that I hope we can Dominate in the future.

I can't wait for the next part... no, seriously, I can't



Jokes aside, I didn't expect it to take me 4 nights to finish part 1. It gives me hope that part 2 will be just as long or even longer.

 

[Mr. Pengo]

I loved this update!

So many beautiful new women that I hope we can Dominate in the future.

I can't wait for the next part... no, seriously, I can't

View attachment 5435302

Jokes aside, I didn't expect it to take me 4 nights to finish part 1. It gives me hope that part 2 will be just as long or even longer.

I have learned that I legitimately have no way of knowing how long these releases will take people to play. I thought episode one would be a few hours tops and I had people saying it took them 16. I've been worried that this update was too short.

Thanks for playing! Pt 2 will most likely be longer.

 

[Buletti]

Episode Two NSFW Scene Guide has been added to the OP, my friends! Thank you thank you

Thank you very much!

You are doing some really amazing stuff here and I was very impressed by the latest update. The story feelings epic and interesting and the characters behavior makes sense for the world they live in. The narration all in all feels very rounded and refined to me (for lack of better words as english is not my 1st language).

I personally just had one issue with this update: I am here to fab. I know you said you just want to add sex scenes where they make sense to you. That is totally fine. You are the one telling the story and I am here for the ride. This is merely to give you another opinion next to all the praise you get for the writing (which as I said above I totally agree to).

After these 2 updates (for me) it seems right now you lay the groundwork to make an AVN but you are making a VN.

Of course this is not really true as there are sex scenes indeed. I was just trying to emphasize my point.

This update made me feel a bit like sitting in a library reading something about Charlemagne while suddenly some naked students run screaming through the building and are out before I even could get a real look at their tits.

To even that out I think it would be great if you could expand the sex scenes. I understand that you commission the art and that more renders will strain your budget even more, but imho it will be great to balance out the whole narration. I personally also think that animations are not necessary and that additional scenes are better than animations but that is always up to debate. I also think that more renders might not even be necessary for every scene if you deepen the narration of the scene a bit more. You already stated Eva Kiss, other writers doing good sex scenes without throwing hundrets of CG at it are imho IridescentTaste (Shard of My Soul), Wraiith303 (Infinite Stars), VoidPilgrim (Star Periphery), Devious Delight Games (Silk and the City of Seduction) and Jinxx Games (Alena's New Life). These are all very different AVNs in style and topic, but imho they all have a certain way to make their scenes special.

This is not to say that the sex in Jezebel is not hot. And I understand that writing a sub and a dom part adds to the complexity. All in all your narration is very good and I highly appreciate all the work you are putting into this.

As said above this is just to add another perspective on your take of an AVN. Everyone is free to agree or ignore it.

I already look forward a lot to how the story unfolds further and wish you all the best for this project!

 

[jireir]

I have learned that I legitimately have no way of knowing how long these releases will take people to play. I thought episode one would be a few hours tops and I had people saying it took them 16. I've been worried that this update was too short.

Thanks for playing! Pt 2 will most likely be longer.

For me it was definitely longer than a few hours. The game so far was like 24h for me to complete what's out there rn.

 

[Mr. Pengo]

Thank you very much!

You are doing some really amazing stuff here and I was very impressed by the latest update. The story feelings epic and interesting and the characters behavior makes sense for the world they live in. The narration all in all feels very rounded and refined to me (for lack of better words as english is not my 1st language).

I personally just had one issue with this update: I am here to fab. I know you said you just want to add sex scenes where they make sense to you. That is totally fine. You are the one telling the story and I am here for the ride. This is merely to give you another opinion next to all the praise you get for the writing (which as I said above I totally agree to).

After these 2 updates (for me) it seems right now you lay the groundwork to make an AVN but you are making a VN.

Of course this is not really true as there are sex scenes indeed. I was just trying to emphasize my point.

This update made me feel a bit like sitting in a library reading something about Charlemagne while suddenly some naked students run screaming through the building and are out before I even could get a real look at their tits.

To even that out I think it would be great if you could expand the sex scenes. I understand that you commission the art and that more renders will strain your budget even more, but imho it will be great to balance out the whole narration. I personally also think that animations are not necessary and that additional scenes are better than animations but that is always up to debate. I also think that more renders might not even be necessary for every scene if you deepen the narration of the scene a bit more. You already stated Eva Kiss, other writers doing good sex scenes without throwing hundrets of CG at it are imho IridescentTaste (Shard of My Soul), Wraiith303 (Infinite Stars), VoidPilgrim (Star Periphery), Devious Delight Games (Silk and the City of Seduction) and Jinxx Games (Alena's New Life). These are all very different AVNs in style and topic, but imho they all have a certain way to make their scenes special.

This is not to say that the sex in Jezebel is not hot. And I understand that writing a sub and a dom part adds to the complexity. All in all your narration is very good and I highly appreciate all the work you are putting into this.

As said above this is just to add another perspective on your take of an AVN. Everyone is free to agree or ignore it.

I already look forward a lot to how the story unfolds further and wish you all the best for this project!

Thanks; this game is always going to be story oriented, but as the budget increases so too will the length of the sex scenes. Whether you characterize it as a VN or an AVN is, I suppose, up to you. I think of it as a serious story where there are no holds barred when it comes to the sex scenes which, to me, makes both more fun.

 

[GreenDark]

Chapter 1 opens with the protagonist speaking to someone who looks to be a very important character with a promise of a big pay off later. The scene is exciting, quickly and strongly establishes Duvessa's very unique and fascinating character and has quality dialogue that immediately makes use of some of your choices in "character creation".
Chapter 2 opens with an unnamed faceless character speaking to an irrelevant NPC about nothing of importance. The dialogue is a little weird as this character exposits his philosophies and personality for no apparent reason, weirding out the NPC.

Chapter 1 quickly establishes stakes and goals for the protagonist, the Blood Tribunal and all the problems to be solved before it, ensuring the player knows what is happening and giving them a reason to be invested regardless of the choices they make throughout the chapter.
Chapter 2 doesn't do that... It feels a bit like slice of life. Duvessa is going around the place looking for things to do most of the time. She does find some but their outcomes and consequences are somewhat nebulous and don't inspire that much investment. The stakes can feel low if your choices don't lead to some of the more dangerous outcomes.

Kerchief tells Lenart that "actions speak louder than words" yet Characters are much more inclined to talk exposition rather than act and convey information about themselves or the situation that way. For example, Kerchief's line about action is in the same scene where he verbally states Lenart's motivation to find Davor's killer. Even worse, Ondrea had already said Lenart's motivation out loud earlier in the council scene.

Did the Blood Tribunal matter? Banislava instantly nullifies the Devereux loss. There are mentions of the defeat throughout the chapter and Duvessa has a grudge against the king but nothing really changes because of it. All of chapter 1, the tension, the stakes, the whole point of it. Cancelled.

At times, chapter 2 bored me. Several scenes could be significantly shortened or outright removed without much, if any, consequence. There is repeated or unnecessary information. To be clear, I don't mind length. It's bloat I take issue with.

I'm well aware that this isn't all of chapter 2. A lot of the current content is set up for later. But chapter 1 didn't need this as a defense, even in its first half. Its scenes and set ups were were entertaining on their own while also pointing to the future for their pay off.

None of this is to say that I disliked this half of chapter 2 in its entirety. In isolation, this new content would probably still be head and shoulders above so much of the entire AVN world. But compared to the excellence of chapter 1, its faults are more apparent. I'm still undoubtedly a fan which is why I can't stop myself from noticing these problems.

But enough Negative Nancy. Jezebel remains one of the best games on this site and chapter 2 itself has plenty of content that is well worth its wordcount.
The beginnings of sub-Duvessa have me very entertained already.
A lot of develoment has happened for old and new characters. Duvessa, August, Veska, Priscilla... even Branko has ascended above a simple big dumb brute with this new "wounded warrior's pride" story thread. The kind of thing I'd love to write about in a long post. But not for now, I'll at least wait until chapter 2 is finished.
Seeing new parts of the city and hearing more about the world at large is always fascinating and I'm already looking forward to reading new Encyclopaedia entries.
Melina humiliated Jasen by proving that social movements with ulterior motives in this world can be believable with careful enough writing. Seriously, it's almost like that scene was specifically written for people like me who hated Jasen's portrayal of his public manipulation skills.

Like most people here I'll be eagerly awaiting the next update and hopefully It'll be the best it can be.

 

[Mr. Pengo]

Chapter 1 opens with the protagonist speaking to someone who looks to be a very important character with a promise of a big pay off later. The scene is exciting, quickly and strongly establishes Duvessa's very unique and fascinating character and has quality dialogue that immediately makes use of some of your choices in "character creation".
Chapter 2 opens with an unnamed faceless character speaking to an irrelevant NPC about nothing of importance. The dialogue is a little weird as this character exposits his philosophies and personality for no apparent reason, weirding out the NPC.

Chapter 1 quickly establishes stakes and goals for the protagonist, the Blood Tribunal and all the problems to be solved before it, ensuring the player knows what is happening and giving them a reason to be invested regardless of the choices they make throughout the chapter.
Chapter 2 doesn't do that... It feels a bit like slice of life. Duvessa is going around the place looking for things to do most of the time. She does find some but their outcomes and consequences are somewhat nebulous and don't inspire that much investment. The stakes can feel low if your choices don't lead to some of the more dangerous outcomes.

Kerchief tells Lenart that "actions speak louder than words" yet Characters are much more inclined to talk exposition rather than act and convey information about themselves or the situation that way. For example, Kerchief's line about action is in the same scene where he verbally states Lenart's motivation to find Davor's killer. Even worse, Ondrea had already said Lenart's motivation out loud earlier in the council scene.

Did the Blood Tribunal matter? Banislava instantly nullifies the Devereux loss. There are mentions of the defeat throughout the chapter and Duvessa has a grudge against the king but nothing really changes because of it. All of chapter 1, the tension, the stakes, the whole point of it. Cancelled.

At times, chapter 2 bored me. Several scenes could be significantly shortened or outright removed without much, if any, consequence. There is repeated or unnecessary information. To be clear, I don't mind length. It's bloat I take issue with.

I'm well aware that this isn't all of chapter 2. A lot of the current content is set up for later. But chapter 1 didn't need this as a defense, even in its first half. Its scenes and set ups were were entertaining on their own while also pointing to the future for their pay off.

None of this is to say that I disliked this half of chapter 2 in its entirety. In isolation, this new content would probably still be head and shoulders above so much of the entire AVN world. But compared to the excellence of chapter 1, its faults are more apparent. I'm still undoubtedly a fan which is why I can't stop myself from noticing these problems.

But enough Negative Nancy. Jezebel remains one of the best games on this site and chapter 2 itself has plenty of content that is well worth its wordcount.
The beginnings of sub-Duvessa have me very entertained already.
A lot of develoment has happened for old and new characters. Duvessa, August, Veska, Priscilla... even Branko has ascended above a simple big dumb brute with this new "wounded warrior's pride" story thread. The kind of thing I'd love to write about in a long post. But not for now, I'll at least wait until chapter 2 is finished.
Seeing new parts of the city and hearing more about the world at large is always fascinating and I'm already looking forward to reading new Encyclopaedia entries.
Melina humiliated Jasen by proving that social movements with ulterior motives in this world can be believable with careful enough writing. Seriously, it's almost like that scene was specifically written for people like me who hated Jasen's portrayal of his public manipulation skills.

Like most people here I'll be eagerly awaiting the next update and hopefully It'll be the best it can be.

I suspected that you, specifically, wouldn't like this update as much ah well

I don't agree with a lot of your points here but I'm gonna try and err on the side of letting your opinions be your own rather than trying to defend my own writing at length lmao. Hopefully you'll like part two more!

Chapter 2 opens with an unnamed faceless character speaking to an irrelevant NPC about nothing of importance. The dialogue is a little weird as this character exposits his philosophies and personality for no apparent reason, weirding out the NPC.

This did make me laugh, tho

 

[dragoonknight1221999]

Finally finished the new update. Still a quite enjoyable game. I definitely agree with what a poster said a bit previously in this thread (in fact I was thinking a similar thing) where lewd scenes could be a bit longer. I understand the budgetary concerns stated in response for why they aren't, but keeping the images/animations as they are now and just adding more dialogue to lengthen the scene would do wonders without the need to commission more art (just more time spent writing said dialogue). Still quite enjoyable though and looking forward to future releases.

I did have on question concerning the ending of this update though...

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[Mr. Pengo]

Finally finished the new update. Still a quite enjoyable game. I definitely agree with what a poster said a bit previously in this thread (in fact I was thinking a similar thing) where lewd scenes could be a bit longer. I understand the budgetary concerns stated in response for why they aren't, but keeping the images/animations as they are now and just adding more dialogue to lengthen the scene would do wonders without the need to commission more art (just more time spent writing said dialogue). Still quite enjoyable though and looking forward to future releases.

I did have on question concerning the ending of this update though...

Spoiler

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Kismet is just a fancy word that means fate or destiny. It isn't related to the game's lore.

 

[dragoonknight1221999]

Kismet is just a fancy word that means fate or destiny. It isn't related to the game's lore.

And who said you can't learn anything new from playing porn games.

 

[David__14]

"what are you gonna do cry in my general direction" thats a funny barb duvessa but I think your not giving veska enough credit, she did endure detainment/torture afterall without blabbing, I wouldn't be surprised if she does eventually end up doing something discreetly to help dedrick when he shows back up or when duvessa tries to bully and push her around like usual she'll be met with some unexpected resistance. I'm not expecting veska to throw hands or anything per se but she's definitely someone that shouldn't be underestimated or ignored because push comes to shove she does try to stand up for herself a bit, and with some character growth and time I could easily see her becoming much more dangerous than one would initally assume from the meek socially anxious small baron widow, she's got potential is what I'm saying I guess and duvessa would be remiss to ignore it, especially if it ends up biting her in the ass when her brother reappears

 

[Walnutt]

Goddamn, what a game. Not only the amount of content in such a short time, but the quality of that content. sheesh

Duvessa has to be one of my favorite characters to play in an AVN. So far I've only ran her Dom route but she's just so good. The one slight I have is sometimes, when something doesn't go her way, she suddenly sounds like a little girl throwing a tantrum instead of a mid-twenties powerful woman who is pretty much the head of her house. There are only a few times this happens but it's enough to knock me out of the immersion for a bit.

Outside of that, bravo dev! I'm hesitant to support on Patreon bc many creators have burnt that bridge but I'm definitely going to if the next release maintains this quality!

 

[Mr. Pengo]

Goddamn, what a game. Not only the amount of content in such a short time, but the quality of that content. sheesh

Duvessa has to be one of my favorite characters to play in an AVN. So far I've only ran her Dom route but she's just so good. The one slight I have is sometimes, when something doesn't go her way, she suddenly sounds like a little girl throwing a tantrum instead of a mid-twenties powerful woman who is pretty much the head of her house. There are only a few times this happens but it's enough to knock me out of the immersion for a bit.

Outside of that, bravo dev! I'm hesitant to support on Patreon bc many creators have burnt that bridge but I'm definitely going to if the next release maintains this quality!

Thanks so much! And the review is much appreciated!

I'd love any particular examples you can remember of dom duvessa acting out of character, by the way!