VN Ren'Py Abandoned Kingdom of Deception [v0.14.2.2] [Hreinn Games]

[Lolicon Kami]

Is the latest upload worth downloading?

 

[Karkhel]

So it took them 4.5 years to reach 0.12 and almost a year from 0.11 to 0.12. Guess that implies there's still 33 to 99 more years to go. Can't wait to play the completed version! (literally)

I'd like to assume you are just making a joke but I've been on the internet long enough so just in case: you do know that's not how those numbered versions work in most porn games right? Usually a game jumps a number whenever substantial enough content/systems has been added but it's NOT an indication of how much total work has been done up until now.
Version 0.12 is not 12% of the final product, games might go from 0.55 to 0.56 and then to 1.0 very next patch because that was all that needed to be done for the final game, it's pretty much never a percentage of work needed for the final version (whether the dev calculated that or not).

That being said sometimes making porn games is more lucrative than finishing them, so who knows maybe you are right on the money with the time table. Even if the devs aren't greedy you grow attached to projects you work on and just don't want them to end. Good news is this particular dev at least fully released a porn game before so I'd say there are better chances for this project.

 

[Enigmanic]

...Usually a game jumps a number whenever substantial enough content/systems has been added but it's NOT an indication of how much total work has been done up until now.
Version 0.12 is not 12% of the final product, games might go from 0.55 to 0.56 and then to 1.0 very next patch because that was all that needed to be done for the final game, it's pretty much never a percentage of work needed for the final version (whether the dev calculated that or not).

That being said sometimes making porn games is more lucrative than finishing them, so who knows maybe you are right on the money with the time table. Even if the devs aren't greedy you grow attached to projects you work on and just don't want them to end. Good news is this particular dev at least fully released a porn game before so I'd say there are better chances for this project.

You make a valid point about the version numbering. As for the rest, that may be a little naive or optimistic.
Noxian Nights was made using RPGMaker relying heavily on stock assets using parody versions of existing characters from League of Legends. It didn't take a lot of ingenuity or creativity. Kingdom of Deception is a different beast.
It has original art for the characters and the scenes but some of the characters, including the protag, are still parodies of girls from LoL. The main story isn't even halfway through after at least four years. At this point the game is a joke. There is a big difference between "not wanting it to end' and actually finishing the story in the first place.

As someone who supported KoD for 4 years I can tell you they are milking this project for the money. It has become obvious that they don't have a cohesive plan for completing the story. They are keeping some of their supporters occupied with lewd content while making stuff up as they go along. A responsible project manager and game designer would have at least an outline of the entire story arc mapped out before diving into actual development. A responsible project manager would not allow his programmer to slack off for several months before actually doing any work resulting in an update being delayed three times. If Nomo, NDS and Monsinne were doing their jobs right and actually cared about finishing the game they would have done things differently. They would have earned more trust and faith from their supporters which would have lured in more supporters to help expedite development.

Nomo is a great artist but unfortunately his art is the only thing keeping KoD alive. This game project is a dumpster fire that emits attractive smoke.

 

[Snowmanly]

Y'all yelling "KOD has gone down the drain" but they literally doubled the scenes in the game with the last patch. Like, if you truly think the game is over and done for - leave the game, forget about it. There was obviously work put into the last update.

I don't get why people still keep on bashing the devs when shit is getting done - by their own pace.

 

[Enigmanic]

..I don't get why people still keep on bashing the devs when shit is getting done - by their own pace.

The amount of content in the game shoudn't have taken four years especially when so many sex scenes are just recycled assets. So many of the sex scenes are pretty much the same stuff over and over. Furthermore, most of KoD's supporters originally started following the game for the story.

 

[Umbra.Nox]

Y'all yelling "KOD has gone down the drain" but they literally doubled the scenes in the game with the last patch. Like, if you truly think the game is over and done for - leave the game, forget about it. Stop whining endlessly on the game, when there was obviously work put into the last update. The way I see it there are 2 options:

1 - shut up, enjoy the game, talk about it, share it with somebody else that might enjoy it.

2 - leave the game and forget about it. You don't like how it's being developed? How the team's not communicating? Vote with your wallet and don't pay for it. Simple economics.

I don't get why people still keep on bashing the devs when shit is getting done - by their own pace.

Well that's not unheard of, people tend to LOVE negativity. In this situation it's kinda justified, but also kinda not, because they were crying nonstop for 8 months or so even before the update, playing oracles and accusing devs for nothing. Like the empty accusations of milking people's wallets and being a scam project.

In the end devs indeed slacked off, except for Nomo and his good artwork(which was criticized constantly too btw, with extreme prejudice). The amount of work looks like coder/s worked exclusively around the deadlines they missed, and it's nowhere near 3/4 of the year worth of work. There's nothing special to do in code, all they have to do is write text and insert new images in code, at worst. It's ctrl+c ctrl+v kind of work, everything they need is already there in their own past work, not something incredibly hard, yet they didn't do it in time. It's most likely a student syndrome, as i wrote somewhere in the past - devs probably just delayed their work without any good reason nor malicious intent, just because they didn't feel like working too fast and thought it'll be easy-peasy to do even close to the update release date. Of course, when the time has come to work they were unable to do it fast enough, having a lazy personality, as i assume.

It's hard to really say people to shut up with negativity, because they have some right to bash the devs for lazy coding, but it's also hard to support all the crying, as they often tend to go way off the rails. Like saying that Nomo's art is bad, or that without Sierra the game is unreadable and disgusting, or that devs are evil scammers. Or i remember that one time when some guy said this kind of delay should be illegal.

 

[Enigmanic]

...It's hard to really say people to shut up with negativity, because they have some right to bash the devs for lazy coding, but it's also hard to support all the crying, as they often tend to go way off the rails. Like saying that Nomo's art is bad, or that without Sierra the game is unreadable and disgusting, or that devs are evil scammers. Or i remember that one time when some guy said this kind of delay should be illegal.

You make excellent points but I don't think most of the 'crying' is unjustified.
- Nomo's art is generally great but for the previous update he made a bunch of art assets of lesser quality hoping he would be able to make some repeatable h-scenes faster but those new art assets looked pretty bad.
- Regarding Sierra Lee.. While she was involved, the game had decent sex content and an interesting story unfolding. Without her, there's been plenty of sex scenes without enough diversity or originality and the story/side story arcs have taken a distant backseat.

This game is very different from when development started, when people initially became interested in the game. The devs also have a habit of ignoring the concerns of supporters who care about the overall quality of the game while catering to those supporters who only care about the sex content.

 

[Shakira]

It has become obvious that they don't have a cohesive plan for completing the story.

I wouldn't even mind that if they at least gave us timely updates with good h scenes. Getting an update once every 6-12 months makes it difficult to stay interested in this game. Hopefully they'll put out updates faster now

 

[Jinsoyun]

Continuing my habit of sitting in the middle of an argument.

I've never been a fan of the "doomsday" posts where people declare that it's all over, so everyone else should stop enjoying it. Even if these posts were writen to vent legit frustration, in the end they serve no other purpose than to harm the players and not even the devs since the last time any of them were confirmed to read this thread has been years ago if i remember correctly.

That being said the devs did give quite many reasons for legitimate criticism.

About a month ago ronadan wrote a reply to one of my posts and he brought up some points, final one among them was about the lack of planning creating a lot of different expectations, and i've came back to thinking about this from time to time since then.
In general i think it's a smart idea to set up story points or teasing scenes which can be continued later on, but by now Hreinn has set up so many different things that the players can't even guess what will be in the next update or how many patches do they need to wait for the content they want. This is of course made worse by the slow patch cycle.

So in no particular order here is a list of the things i can remember off the top of my hat that have been either set up or teased so far without being resolved.

The warchief's fate.
The warchief's successor.
The Shaman's plans.
The politics and influence of the tribe of orc shamans.
The plans of Sabia's family and potential internal divides.
Neve's backstory.
Kira's plans.
Vehlis' plans.
The plans of the 3 captains.
Dajrab completely. Backstory, skills, powers, scenes, anything.
Jadk.
Ylva's mission or role.
Kia's future and background.
Bris and the catgirls and what does Maply think of it?
Jasmine.
Amelia + the brothel.
Lutvrog.
Kuglan.
Sabia's raiding party.

Scenes are expected to involve the following characters:
Neve, Ylva, Lutvrog, the shaman and his guys, Rokgrid, Tekrok and his team, Dajrab, Jeran, tent guards, Bris, Maply, Vehlis, Kira, Kia, Avion, Amelia, Jasmine, tentacle monster, Flufftooth, Sabia's raiding party, Not-Katarina at the stables (+Neve's interest in it). Add to this random ors, humans, maybe catgirls and whoever is your own favorite that i missed.

I'm intentionally not going into any obscure ideas or specific details here, i'll leave that for another post, and i'm also not saying that we should know everything in the future of this game broken down to details, but for example this year knowing that Sabia will revisit the tents was a gret indicator of the type of content we can expect.

 

[Bawunga]

It''s already been said but the moment the warchief gets captured and that depressing music starts playing all the time is where this game fell apart and never recovered from. Big sad.

 

[Karl Speidel]

The game declined since Sierra left that a fact but it didnt have to rot like it did by now,what we are looking at is a dying game that is keep going by people who invested too much and dont want to admit that they wasted money so they keep investing and hentai addicts who are content with "doubling" "scenes" once every 6 months or so instead of going to pornhub or a scene focused game.This game's biggest asset was its story,unique characters,dialogue and lore which is now not gonna be expanded very much if at all.

So its stupid to throw away all of that and focus on scenes,they added alot of recycled art while those who aren't are sub-standard quality,this shockingly came at the cost of dialogue and story which are now secondary to the lazy devs.
At this point it will take a miracle to get KoD out of life support.

 

[Evergrey]

The game declined since Sierra left that a fact but it didnt have to rot like it did by now,what we are looking at is a dying game that is keep going by people who invested too much and dont want to admit that they wasted money so they keep investing and hentai addicts who are content with "doubling" "scenes" once every 6 months or so instead of going to pornhub or a scene focused game.This game's biggest asset was its story,unique characters,dialogue and lore which is now not gonna be expanded very much if at all.

So its stupid to throw away all of that and focus on scenes,they added alot of recycled art while those who aren't are sub-standard quality,this shockingly came at the cost of dialogue and story which are now secondary to the lazy devs.
At this point it will take a miracle to get KoD out of life support.

i personally think the game started to decline before sierra left, i personally blame patreon as i noticed the game became alot tamer when patreon started being draconian on their rules around porn games

 

[Karl Speidel]

i personally think the game started to decline before sierra left, i personally blame patreon as i noticed the game became alot tamer when patreon started being draconian on their rules around porn games

I didnt pay much attention to Patreon and i didnt see any major changes,the minotaur scenes with Sabia plus the bandit leader (forgott her name) are pretty brutal not to mention sadistic and involve bestiality.
Please do elaborate on how the game became more tame since patreon.

 

[Enigmanic]

I didnt pay much attention to Patreon and i didnt see any major changes,the minotaur scenes with Sabia plus the bandit leader (forgott her name) are pretty brutal not to mention sadistic and involve bestiality.
Please do elaborate on how the game became more tame since patreon.

First - minotaurs are intelligent humanoids so it doesn't count as bestiality. The game does feature sex with the hellhounds but those scenes had to be snuck in much later since Patreon forbids bestiality.

Second and more troubling - Patreon forbids non-con. That's a big problem for many fantasy games and KoD is no exception.
The orcs follow a culture of conquering lands, slaughtering men and raping enslaved women. That's problematic due to Patreon's prohibition of noncon so everytime Sabia gets raped, she acts like she's mildly annoyed instead of actually being distraught about being raped or gangbanged.

Yes, the game became much tamer and it's made even worse due to poor writing.

 

[Karl Speidel]

First - minotaurs are intelligent humanoids so it doesn't count as bestiality. The game does feature sex with the hellhounds but those scenes had to be snuck in much later since Patreon forbids bestiality.

Second and more troubling - Patreon forbids non-con. That's a big problem for many fantasy games and KoD is no exception.
The orcs follow a culture of conquering lands, slaughtering men and raping enslaved women. That's problematic due to Patreon's prohibition of noncon so everytime Sabia gets raped, she acts like she's mildly annoyed instead of actually being distraught about being raped or gangbanged.

Yes, the game became much tamer and it's made even worse due to poor writing.

Is that why Sabia acts like that? I though it was intentional to make it comic or that its the dev's style.The scenes with the minotaur are anything but consensual.

Anyhow the devs are responsible for all of this mess,they chose to join patreon and supposetly abide by their rules which are arbitrarly instead of doing things the way they wanted,joining patreon AFTER they finished KoD would have been smarter since they would have gotten atleast some donations before (and if) they decided to shut them down.

 

[Enigmanic]

Is that why Sabia acts like that? I though it was intentional to make it comic or that its the dev's style.The scenes with the minotaur are anything but consensual.

Anyhow the devs are responsible for all of this mess,they chose to join patreon and supposetly abide by their rules which are arbitrarly instead of doing things the way they wanted,joining patreon AFTER they finished KoD would have been smarter since they would have gotten atleast some donations before (and if) they decided to shut them down.

Regarding the noncon, there are scenes that involve other characters being raped and the women in those scenes act a little more realistic. But most sex scenes in the game involve the protag so the noncon scenes with Sabia are much tamer.

And I partially agree about Patreon. At the time it may have been necessary for financing the game but there are certainly better alternatives. In fact, I and other supporters have in the past suggested that Nomo move the game to SubscribeStar since that crowdfunding platform doesn't restrict noncon. Frankly, I wish more adult game makers would go to SubscribeStar.

 

[Karl Speidel]

Regarding the noncon, there are scenes that involve other characters being raped and the women in those scenes act a little more realistic. But most sex scenes in the game involve the protag so the noncon scenes with Sabia are much tamer.

And I partially agree about Patreon. At the time it may have been necessary for financing the game but there are certainly better alternatives. In fact, I and other supporters have in the past suggested that Nomo move the game to SubscribeStar since that crowdfunding platform doesn't restrict noncon. Frankly, I wish more adult game makers would go to SubscribeStar.

This reminds me of ZXC (or what his name is) that made Latex Dungeon,he was on patreon for quite some time (over a year) and practically didnt abide by their rules yet he got quite a bit of a following and donations,he moved to SubscribeStar after his patreon was shut down.
Point is that he didnt allow patreon to dictate his passion/work and smartly used it as long as he could then moved.

Now that i think about it non con scenes would be a little hard to pull off,im not a fan of brutal scenes but more scenes like the orc raping the elf or like the minotaur with sabia would have been welcomed for their originality and for not really crossing the line.

 

[Enigmanic]

This reminds me of ZXC (or what his name is) that made Latex Dungeon,he was on patreon for quite some time (over a year) and practically didnt abide by their rules yet he got quite a bit of a following and donations,he moved to SubscribeStar after his patreon was shut down.
Point is that he didnt allow patreon to dictate his passion/work and smartly used it as long as he could then moved.

Now that i think about it non con scenes would be a little hard to pull off,im not a fan of brutal scenes but more scenes like the orc raping the elf or like the minotaur with sabia would have been welcomed for their originality and for not really crossing the line.

Good points. A funny thing about the scenes with Avion (the minotaur) and Sabia - That scene was rewritten just one update later. In the original version Sabia clearly was more distraught and emotional about him raping her. But some supporters argued that the scene was 'too intense'. Some even called it depressing. It just goes to show the mentality of some supporters. These morons are like, "Oh yeah! Give us more scenes of Sabia getting raped and gangbanged by orcs and minotaurs!! Woohoo!"
"Hey wait, she shouldn't be upset about it. Meh, that's depressing. The girl being raped is clearly upset about it, it's ruining my boner!"

 

[Jinsoyun]

It''s already been said but the moment the warchief gets captured and that depressing music starts playing all the time is where this game fell apart and never recovered from. Big sad.

That's partially because that was the last story patch before 0.12. Everyone wanted more h-scenes and the devs wanted to make new assets (groping, human town, minotaur, tentacle monster), so it was decided that the story would get pushed into the background for the next 3 patches and in exchange we would get a lot of sexy interactions, groping and a bit more things to do around the camp in general.

The problem is that nobody expected this to take almost 2 years, i asume that everyone thought that 3 updates would take a year at most and by now we would be on the 4th consecutive story focused patch at 0.15.
Even now with 0.12 released the new story we got is barely more than "jasmine is a thing, she works with Sabia's family and they have a plan".

And i enjoyed this filler content. The scenes in Sabia's tent have been great, a lot of interactions were fun in my opinion and the groping+repeatable art could be used in some very cool ways (i'm gathering my thoughts for a post about that).
But as i wrote in my last post too, currently the story has a lot of hanging threads and we have no timeframes or milestones to work with.

"For now Sabia has to wait and see what happens next" in the human towns with Jasmine's group, in the orc camp with the captains, in the tents with Bris (on sub route), still in the camp with the shaman, in the bandit camp with Kira and outside of the orc camp with her own raiding party.
Things that are outside of her control obviously should happen, but if everything is on a "wait and see" cliffhanger, then Sabia is a passive obvserver in her own story.

Personally i would much prefer having Sabia narrate her plan to us or one of her friends and then wait for the next patch to see if it works out or something goes wrong instead of the current method. Just 4-5 extra sentences at the end of each patch could give us the feeling that Sabia is actively working towards her goals instead of waiting to be pushed in accidentally the right direction.

 

[new brave]

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