Unreal Engine Kalyskah [v0.25.9] [Nobre Lobo]

[The wolves]

i'm stuck with silas quest, i do sex with him on the night but quest dont be valid, and it's hard to find quest and continue adventure, that's normal ?

After sleeping with Silas, you need to talk to the innkeeper. After selecting the tasks from the journal section, exclamation points appear around you, you can continue the story by following them.

 

[Kalyskah]

I disagree completely. In fact, part of what makes kalyshkah so compelling for me is the fact that she CAN be both. Too often in these female MC games you have to pick and "corruption" just means losing intelligence and becoming a mindless bimbo.
Personally I love the notion of a MC who is sexually submissive but also a badass. Her journey for me would involve her going from maybe being ashamed of her feelings to eventually understanding and accepting her sexuality without sacrificing her independence or feeling any shame about it.

Too many of the female Protag games on here are just "Let's have her become a quivering, submissive slut who lost her mind" type.
Great for the fantasies of the predominantly male crowd that come here, but really silly in terms of how complex a woman can be.

That is exactly the route we want to go: Kalyskah can be very submissive in bed but that doesn't affect how much she'll be fighting for her goals or how she'll stand her ground when people try to push her to do something in a non-sexual context. Her fetishes are not necessary how her personality is on her everyday life and we want to give the player the room to roleplay her like that.

The game needs more xxx content

Oh, this is coming =)

We're all saying the same thing from different directions then, because that is definitely the main problem here with game construction. Kalyska becomes temporarily chaotic stupid to get all current/future porn content. It is poorly integrated. It is tonally inconsistent. It is out of character. To fix it requires more backtracking on the devs part, which means more time with no forward progression of narrative as they suss out how to actually integrate conventional gameplay with a pornplot. The tonal shift of "cut down all before you" to "yes guard I'll suck your cock instead of give you this arbitrary amount of gold uwu" kills game feel and reduces what was promising to just another "and then she was a slut now" game.

The opening presents a grounded worldspace. The starter town devolves into porngamism. They need to choose one, fix the other, take the lesson forward into the rest of the game design.
My vote is grounded: scrap the town sidequest atonality, make James the designated penis for the current rigs, and focus on forward porn progression through that first meaningful NPC relationship alongside combat based progression of the plot.


The answer there seems to be tendency points, but in practice...
...it's going to fall apart at scale.

The problem with centering content around "female_MC X Rando" with their outfit and tendency system is incipient bloat. Each tendency for 0 to max is going to need dialogue for every NPC.
Not a problem in the 10 minutes of gameplay just yet, when there isn't more game and current interactions are one time use, but in a proper sandbox design every NPC interaction in game is going to need dialogue and quest responses for every stat state and that will be literally hundreds of lines they'll need to voice act.

This goes in two directions.
1. Game is unfinishable, development slows to a crawl as every addition requires massive background dialogue/VA work.

The alchemist quest has alt lines for outfit variables, so this is what they intend in scale. The tendency system when it plays into dialogue as kalyska starts hitting benchmarks is going to killshot the game. Even if it's only 0-25-50-75-100 across the ~6 variables that means every NPC exchange is going to need ~30 recorded alt lines every time it comes up to effect dialogue and gameplay. if it's every 10? 70. And that isn't even accounting for negative variables (double it) or variables effecting each other to accommodate for example "-20 compassion, +50 submission." 9^6 is... 21^6 is...​

For every NPC, everywhere, in every location she can visit. It's going to become rapidly untenable as the plot and choices forward the game.​

2. It's rendered meaningless because it isn't used.

And content is accessible for every stat alignment and can be backed out of as fear of patreons view of "nonconsentual" sanitizes the game.​

And NPCs don't act or react to her action based characterization because if they could, see above.​

And when it does trigger, it becomes an annoyance because it is so infrequent and can't be planned around. Lowering overall game feel and polish.​

This is why I haven't changed my review or opinion yet. (Maybe in 3-4 months with the stated forward development actually happening, or ideally a change in direction.)
Dev says we're fully aware of the size of the game design they're pitching.
...Ok?
That doesn't change how impossible it is to execute.
Writing is on the wall here. Unless there is a change to game scope via reframing these systems or a scaling back of the world, they're going to run head first into the game simply being unfinishable or sadly unachieved.

I'm sorry to say that but if it sounds impossible to you it doesn't mean that it is impossible for us. We have a plan on how to do things and I don't want to go through another text wall to repeat my first answer. As I said before, come back in a few months and check out the development =)

i'm stuck with silas quest, i do sex with him on the night but quest dont be valid, and it's hard to find quest and continue adventure, that's normal ?

After sleeping with Silas, you need to talk to the innkeeper. After selecting the tasks from the journal section, exclamation points appear around you, you can continue the story by following them.

You can talk with Madame Bouchard to continue the city of thieves questline. But we haven't triggered the ending of the courtesan job yet because we are currently working on expanding the sex-simulator. And we want to work on those jobs in a more satisfying way where the player will need to explore a bit of the NPC's personality to find out what they like and what they do not like. In our current roadmap this system is being worked on this month, but we imagine that it will be fully implemented more or less by the middle of November. There's a lot of new animations coming for that side of the game and also a lot of programming! =D

 

[wario7403]

ok thanks for answer, i have talked to bouchard but silas quest dont be completed, i understand the reason is because need developement ! This game is great i love him, just a lot of bug right now but good job !

 

[IG88a]

we want to give the player the room to roleplay her

You simply aren't doing that when access to content is "pick the feckless, out of character choice to get a sexscene or don't"
Future content may not be like that, but then you're adding more atonality to your game. Because everything currently in milhaven is "coercive sex scene with randos" or "skip button." So everything you worked on the last 8+ months by devlogs will be ignored by most players on any roleplay but your very specific "I'm just so dang submissive as a sexual fetish unrelated to the way I carry myself everywhere else teehee" fetish route. If you only want to make a game about a slutty vampire, get your ducks in a row about tone by replacing your (best part of your game) intro with something suitably light and porngamey so people know they aren't getting a combat game with loverslab out the box, just a sidequest based porngame with a pornplot.

For all the primary and secondary stats, the simple fact none of them (at literally 0) stop transactional sex and whoring means you've set your MC as being a slut by default. "Well just choose the other option" isn't the problem here, it's your lack of utilization of your stat system in player choice checks. You aren't using the building blocks you've given yourself and frankly that's a common theme here. If you're going to make a pornplot hypersexual world kalyskah is an "outsider" in, she has to act like that is new. A story of "sexual liberation" in this more "modern" age if you choose a stat build for it. Instead you've blown your load there on the first guy she sucks off for a favor. All those interesting mechanics based arcs and ~poof~ killed by your lack of content depth because earlygame booba.

And at that point this is just wanderlust with vampires. Wanderlust at least knew it's main character is just a trope slut (and was a fun enough 3rd person female protagonist combat game because of it) instead of pretending through skippable content that she wasn't.

I'm sorry to say that but if it sounds impossible to you it doesn't mean that it is impossible for us. We have a plan on how to do things and I don't want to go through another text wall to repeat my first answer. As I said before, come back in a few months and check out the development =)

Rather catty nonanswer to my post outlining how from what we've seen your dialogue system is untenable at scale due to your game construction. If you have an articulatable direction for how you're going to handle tendency in dialogue to make choices materially affect the game world yet somehow not massively bloat your VA and dialogue system, that would have been the time to drop it.

A game like fallout or skyrim that uses skill based speech checks isn't what you're doing either. Fallout uses active checks, dialogue unlocks because you put points into a skill or core stat willfully and you can choose to trigger them. You didn't do that. Your skill/tag integration has been reactive autoplay in dialogue and tendency gained or lost by actions. It is an interesting system... if you had what it affected centralized, like if if was designed around main NPC relationships, but you don't. Instead every interactable NPC is going to need encompassing autoplay checks and alt dialogue for this system. If your secret answer behind the "=)" is it's ultimately a pointless system you won't fully flush out to the point it affects gameplay, why make it at all? If your secret answer is you're changing it, because you recognize your game can't get past it's starting quests when you matte them as a web diagram of your quest design, yet again this would be the time to lay it out as a bumper instead of responding to "this is why it won't work" with nothing.

Crystal ball to the future, you're setting yourself up where in practice everything but a clear sex stat like submission is going to be ignored because it doesn't directly forward porn content, only flushes out gamefeel. Or you'll get so bogged down in alt dialogues to make a real game with this system that porn will be an afterthought shuffled out of real gameplay and into more meaningless, context light "slut only" framed scenes.
It seemed you want to aim higher, but aiming higher doesn't mean aiming for a game that is unmakeable with your team size and resources. All you'll end up with, best case, is a game unactualized.

 

[ravynne]

You simply aren't doing that when access to content is "pick the feckless, out of character choice to get a sexscene or don't"
Future content may not be like that, but then you're adding more atonality to your game. Because everything currently in milhaven is "coercive sex scene with randos" or "skip button." So everything you worked on the last 8+ months by devlogs will be ignored by most players on any roleplay but your very specific "I'm just so dang submissive as a sexual fetish unrelated to the way I carry myself everywhere else teehee" fetish route. If you only want to make a game about a slutty vampire, get your ducks in a row about tone by replacing your (best part of your game) intro with something suitably light and porngamey so people know they aren't getting a combat game with loverslab out the box, just a sidequest based porngame with a pornplot.

For all the primary and secondary stats, the simple fact none of them (at literally 0) stop transactional sex and whoring means you've set your MC as being a slut by default. "Well just choose the other option" isn't the problem here, it's your lack of utilization of your stat system in player choice checks. You aren't using the building blocks you've given yourself and frankly that's a common theme here. If you're going to make a pornplot hypersexual world kalyskah is an "outsider" in, she has to act like that is new. A story of "sexual liberation" in this more "modern" age if you choose a stat build for it. Instead you've blown your load there on the first guy she sucks off for a favor. All those interesting mechanics based arcs and ~poof~ killed by your lack of content depth because earlygame booba.

And at that point this is just wanderlust with vampires. Wanderlust at least knew it's main character is just a trope slut (and was a fun enough 3rd person female protagonist combat game because of it) instead of pretending through skippable content that she wasn't.



Rather catty nonanswer to my post outlining how from what we've seen your dialogue system is untenable at scale due to your game construction. If you have an articulatable direction for how you're going to handle tendency in dialogue to make choices materially affect the game world yet somehow not massively bloat your VA and dialogue system, that would have been the time to drop it.

A game like fallout or skyrim that uses skill based speech checks isn't what you're doing either. Fallout uses active checks, dialogue unlocks because you put points into a skill or core stat willfully and you can choose to trigger them. You didn't do that. Your skill/tag integration has been reactive autoplay in dialogue and tendency gained or lost by actions. It is an interesting system... if you had what it affected centralized, like if if was designed around main NPC relationships, but you don't. Instead every interactable NPC is going to need encompassing autoplay checks and alt dialogue for this system. If your secret answer behind the "=)" is it's ultimately a pointless system you won't fully flush out to the point it affects gameplay, why make it at all? If your secret answer is you're changing it, because you recognize your game can't get past it's starting quests when you matte them as a web diagram of your quest design, yet again this would be the time to lay it out as a bumper instead of responding to "this is why it won't work" with nothing.

Crystal ball to the future, you're setting yourself up where in practice everything but a clear sex stat like submission is going to be ignored because it doesn't directly forward porn content, only flushes out gamefeel. Or you'll get so bogged down in alt dialogues to make a real game with this system that porn will be an afterthought shuffled out of real gameplay and into more meaningless, context light "slut only" framed scenes.
It seemed you want to aim higher, but aiming higher doesn't mean aiming for a game that is unmakeable with your team size and resources. All you'll end up with, best case, is a game unactualized.

Dude we get it. You don't like this game or you don't think it's completable at the current rate. That's fine, you're entitled to your opinion.
I kind of feel like the dev has been more than patient with you and it seems like they're saying let's agree to disagree. Come back in a few months to check on development.
What are you hoping to achieve with these walls of text?

 

[Centrophy]

Dude we get it. You don't like this game or you don't think it's completable at the current rate. That's fine, you're entitled to your opinion.
I kind of feel like the dev has been more than patient with you and it seems like they're saying let's agree to disagree. Come back in a few months to check on development.
What are you hoping to achieve with these walls of text?

There it is! The attempt to shut down dissenting discussion. I won't say constructive criticism since let's face it, it's up to the receiver to decide whether they think the criticism is constructive or not. It happens on every game unless you're anything but pure positivity. That said, I enjoyed reading most of IG88a's takes even if the dev doesn't. Personally, I've been following this game's progress for a while and while as a regular adventure game it's... fine, as a porn game it leaves a lot to be desired.

 

[IG88a]

Dude we get it. You don't like this game or you don't think it's completable at the current rate. That's fine, you're entitled to your opinion.
I kind of feel like the dev has been more than patient with you and it seems like they're saying let's agree to disagree. Come back in a few months to check on development.
What are you hoping to achieve with these walls of text?

As a dev if you're active on a piracy forum you cannot moderate, the only reason for it is perspectives and feedback you aren't getting through your conventional media portals. And they dragged me into this conversation, I said my piece in a review. So because of that, which I do appreciate, I've provided further opportunities to assuage the people who've given the game it's 3.5/5 polarized rating. I could have just said "game unfinishable, little content after years of development" (an opinion coming out of my own "real professional game designer" knowledgebase and going through the last year of their dev logs being been stuck in milhaven) like the rest of them and written it off. Instead here I am offering notes instead, because someone else opened up the dialogue. Because yeah, there is something here. It just needs a onceover.

There isn't enough here yet that they have to persist in this doomed world they have created. Even if that ultimately means scaling back the openworld-sandbox elements into a fixed narrative about a slutty vampire which is the totality of the current game and content. What their current audience is pushing for, instead of failing to service the rest of the market looking for what they're promising with the current scale.

>inb4 backer dev polls want this first
Bad crowdfunding design. Allowing your audience to create a climate where people won't pledge or people will drop pledges because you're pitting them against each other. Where people won't back because a core of your current audience holds you captive to make X content forever and will drop support if they stop getting the option. And as you've personally been impacted by, it's a positive promise that can be broken. Whereas just having a roadmap is egalitarian and lets everyone know exact what they'll eventually get. Still a promise, but on their own timetable where they don't have to admit they didn't know how to make instanced content until a few months ago.

So really I can ask you the same. If all you want to say is things you can say on their official front facing media, what are you hoping to achieve here?

 

[ravynne]

As a dev if you're active on a piracy forum you cannot moderate, the only reason for it is perspectives and feedback you aren't getting through your conventional media portals. And they dragged me into this conversation, I said my piece in a review. So because of that, which I do appreciate, I've provided further opportunities to assuage the people who've given the game it's 3.5/5 polarized rating. I could have just said "game unfinishable, little content after years of development" (an opinion coming out of my own "real professional game designer" knowledgebase and going through the last year of their dev logs being been stuck in milhaven) like the rest of them and written it off. Instead here I am offering notes instead, because someone else opened up the dialogue. Because yeah, there is something here. It just needs a onceover.

There isn't enough here yet that they have to persist in this doomed world they have created. Even if that ultimately means scaling back the openworld-sandbox elements into a fixed narrative about a slutty vampire which is the totality of the current game and content. What their current audience is pushing for, instead of failing to service the rest of the market looking for what they're promising with the current scale.

>inb4 backer dev polls want this first
Bad crowdfunding design. Allowing your audience to create a climate where people won't pledge or people will drop pledges because you're pitting them against each other. Where people won't back because a core of your current audience holds you captive to make X content forever and will drop support if they stop getting the option. And as you've personally been impacted by, it's a positive promise that can be broken. Whereas just having a roadmap is egalitarian and lets everyone know exact what they'll eventually get. Still a promise, but on their own timetable where they don't have to admit they didn't know how to make instanced content until a few months ago.

So really I can ask you the same. If all you want to say is things you can say on their official front facing media, what are you hoping to achieve here?

Help me understand correctly; is your intent by these posts then to help save the game from itself and make it better? Because I can respect that. I'm just not sure if the way you're going about is the best way to do that. From my perspective and from reading the Dev's response to your messages, you've reached an impasse. I just don't see what continuing to write the same argument brings you after that.

To answer your question to me, I criticized the developer here because I saw them here. They gave me a response I was satisfied with and that was that. I stay here because there are very valid criticisms that come from non-patrons that I'm interested in reading-- yes including yours!

There it is! The attempt to shut down dissenting discussion. I won't say constructive criticism since let's face it, it's up to the receiver to decide whether they think the criticism is constructive or not. It happens on every game unless you're anything but pure positivity. That said, I enjoyed reading most of IG88a's takes even if the dev doesn't. Personally, I've been following this game's progress for a while and while as a regular adventure game it's... fine, as a porn game it leaves a lot to be desired.

Please note that I have not made any criticism of his actual argument. I think he's just as entitled to his opinion and posting it here as anyone else. In fact if you look up a few posts, you'll see I also had negative comments to the dev.
I have no issue with negative comments. I just want the discussion to be productive.

 

[Kalyskah]

Help me understand correctly; is your intent by these posts then to help save the game from itself and make it better? Because I can respect that. I'm just not sure if the way you're going about is the best way to do that. From my perspective and from reading the Dev's response to your messages, you've reached an impasse. I just don't see what continuing to write the same argument brings you after that.

To answer your question to me, I criticized the developer here because I saw them here. They gave me a response I was satisfied with and that was that. I stay here because there are very valid criticisms that come from non-patrons that I'm interested in reading-- yes including yours!



Please note that I have not made any criticism of his actual argument. I think he's just as entitled to his opinion and posting it here as anyone else. In fact if you look up a few posts, you'll see I also had negative comments to the dev.
I have no issue with negative comments. I just want the discussion to be productive.

Exactly what I think. This discussion is beyond productive.

I see that they gave an argument of checking old changelogs to see the speed the game have been produced so far. But in response to that, on th last year we had only 3 people actively working on the game (without counting the voice actors).
On the past two months, thanks to our patrons we got more budget and now we have 9. And the plan is to grow more as our budget grows.

So the tendency is for th game develop faster, not to keep at the same pace forever. And this is why my final argument is: Come back to check the game in six months. For now, saying the same thing over and over is pointless.

 

[IG88a]

Help me understand correctly; is your intent by these posts then to help save the game from itself and make it better? Because I can respect that. I'm just not sure if the way you're going about is the best way to do that. From my perspective and from reading the Dev's response to your messages, you've reached an impasse.

Funny that, I wasn't the one to decide to air it in the thread. I laid out my thoughts as a review. Apparently its a common enough sentiment to warrant response and back and forth it's prompted.

I do consider it a point in their favor trying to be active and respond to criticism and praise alike but the problem here, this "impasse," isn't a problem from my perspective as a critic or part of the customer base being courted beyond what it means for the game. Big problem the other direction.

The crux of my points there are all mainly about scale and game systems, expanded on when it was being addressed. I'm not one to state a problem without providing (multiple) angles for solutions, but as for just the problems.

1. milhaven is a worldspace akin to white orchard (witcher3), Flotsam(witcher2), or Whiterun(skyrim) and to flush it out alone is going to need a similar 15-30 quests: at least 3-5 main quests each at the ~30-60min mark in length (dungeon/combat encounter based) and sidequests in the ~20 minute range. Currently they have a 5 minute "main quest" to get the second fragment and ~2 sidequests of reasonable size. Milhaven is at 3/~15 and even at a pace of a new questline a month they'd finally be able to leave the starter town after a year. Completing the first 4-6 hours of content. Then they have to do it again for the next worldspace, then again, then again x_ many times until the game is finished.​

​

2. The tendency system and stat state based dialogue NPC responses as designed, if actually used in a full scale open world sandbox game, require an amount of voiceacting and alt dialogue far exceeding that necessary for designs AAA studios put out.​

​

The answer given wasn't that this was somehow a misrepresentation of the scope of their game, or a response roadmap showing how they intend to compartmentalize this into something attainable in the immediate future of a year or two. It was that they "know" and "it's the game they want to make."

That just isn't the kind of answer that smooths over these concerns, hence the "impasse," so I wonder why present it as such.

Jumping from a 3 to 9 man team with freelancers is a good thing. The new orc isn't a green skinned human like the rest and a really good model, maybe Boris will even be black at some point, but even with the additional output best case this becomes what? A ~quest of similar size a month?
If kalyskah is a magnum opus 10 years in the making with a year of active development and ~5 years more ahead to completion, be up front with that. Lay out the ask so people understand the risks of backing.

The opening dungeon crawl doesn't do that for a lot of people. It suggests a combat-mechanics oriented game that will be readily achievable and highly backable... then you hit milhaven like a brick wall with no more game to play. Until the intro presents itself as what the game is about, there will keep being people wondering what the fuck happened to the game at the transition beyond it.
The thing that really struck me in all this is saying a reusable dungeon of similar complexity to the games start would take ~2 months to make. Which means they could have had a full, enjoyable game with all the combat, sex, fetish, and story done in year or so if they'd stuck to what it demo's; fighting focus, Slutty armor, and meaningful interpersonal relationships with acquirable combat companions.

I'll say my peace too Kalyskah and end on this
You guys did it once and it works, seriously why not run with it?
If you released builds starting on Milhaven, the template for the rest of your game, even with the same dungeon as part of the questline somewhere later (where it was probably intended), you wouldn't have a fraction of the response or interest even though it'd be representative of the actual game. Your team is well aware the reason you put it first instead of having Kalyskah take the same cave to the surface James used to steal her macguffin.

 

[ThatWeirdGuyWithaWeirdHat]

There is waaaaaay too much to read in this damn thread

 

[Ares10000]

In a new quest, how to find evidence? The door to the house is closed.

 

[Kenzin20]

game is way too big. isn't there a compressed or optimized version?

 

[Kalyskah]

In a new quest, how to find evidence? The door to the house is closed.

Press V to use the vampiric vision. It will highlight the points of interest

game is way too big. isn't there a compressed or optimized version?

There isn't sorry. That's why the way we suggest for you to get the game is through itch.io desktop app. It's like a steam for indie games and it will auto-update the game everytime we release a patch, always downloading only the newest files instead of the whole thing:

You must be registered to see the links

 

[Casandor35]

Nobody really care about the house or the clutter texture that much. In my opinion, it should focus on adding the contents, improving the story as well as making it performance friendly as possible is the right way to develop this game

 

[Kalyskah]

Nobody really care about the house or the clutter texture that much. In my opinion, it should focus on adding the contents, improving the story as well as making it performance friendly as possible is the right way to develop this game

We'll spend the next two months adding modular situations. Like events with bandits or the beginning of the puppeteers questline (that will also have modular events on the second phase.

And then we are already bringing someone to the team to give us a hand with optimizations and back-end code improvements that should increase performance =)

 

[Ares10000]

Press V to use the vampiric vision. It will highlight the points of interest

I did it. Nothing is visible there, except for the chest.

 

[Kalyskah]

I did it. Nothing is visible there, except for the chest.

Can you send me a screenshot and also show me at which step of the quest you are by making it appear on the side of your screen (pressing J to go to journal and selecting the quest you are on)?

 

[Ares10000]

Can you send me a screenshot and also show me at which step of the quest you are by making it appear on the side of your screen (pressing J to go to journal and selecting the quest you are on)?

 

[Kalyskah]

View attachment 1390509

View attachment 1390510

It seems like you are on the step to check the evidence on the room you took the quest. Then speak with the girls again to see where to go next. Or did you already found the evidence and then for some reason the game went back to the state where nothing was found?