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

[Brother Penetrātus]

I really wish I was as hopeful as you are. Hreinn's fate has already been decided long ago, given how we have to wait for almost full-year-round just to get an update. Despite their 741 patrons, there was little-to-no interaction on their page (maybe limited to Discord only, though, who knows?).

Disbanding/Abandoning their game would be less painful than carrying it around all year as if it had still a speck of hope despite their unchanging belief of "keep a tight-knit community" around themselves and I'm not particularly hopeful about this project since late 2018.

TL;DR:
Denial is one hell o' a drug, for them, I guess.

It's normal that their patreon goes up when a update was released (especially if one cut's an update in 3 pieces and releasing it over a span of 3 months...(Intentionally? How knows..)) but overall, they lost another 150 patreons this year.
But the amount of patrons is not what count's most, but money and here they dropped significantly over past years: From a average of round about $6100 to $3600 per month, that's -$2500/Month in comparrison what they had at the end of Noxian Nights and the first 2 yrs of KoD.

Source:

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[ouch2020]

It's normal that their patreon goes up when a update was released (especially if one cut's an update in 3 pieces and releasing it over a span of 3 months...(Intentionally? How knows..)) but overall, they lost another 150 patreons this year.
But the amount of patrons is not what count's most, but money and here they dropped significantly over past years: From a average of round about $6100 to $3600 per month, that's -$2500/Month in comparrison what they had at the end of Noxian Nights and the first 2 yrs of KoD.

Source:

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Hmm, I am only from to time looking at this, because I discovered the game recently, and then immediately realised it was pointless to expect fast turnaround and to spend my limited Patreon money to finance them, but on the other hand... It depends in which country they live in, and how many they are, and if they declare to taxes the Patreon income (doubtful, even assuming they are supposed to do so), but in many countries, even those 3600USD translated to more than an average salary, and even to a salary that allows an entire family to live nicely.
So, they may indeed have zero incentive to do stuff, considering also that if they are doing very little for the game, means they can do other stuff, and that money is extra.

 

[CourierNPC]

So, they may indeed have zero incentive to do stuff, considering also that if they are doing very little for the game, means they can do other stuff, and that money is extra.

TL;DR
They just use this game to get lunch money if they had a day job and has more importance than this

 

[heehatatt]

yea nomo lives in the us, 3k/month is a pretty low income, even lower if you live in one of the more expensive states. then he has to split it/pay per commission the writer and the coder.

 

[Kalist001]

One thing that irks me on this game is how there's no option for inviting some orcs to your tent for some casual fun. You have to download a mod for such an option that it's not even that interesting since it's only a BJ...

 

[deathsurfer]

Version 0.13.2 is up, we need a hero.

 

[freeze107]

13.2

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bugfix 1

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Replace this file inside your KoD/game subfolder. This fixes:

- Not being able to turn in the quest to Kira.

 

[Negativpro0]

13.2
Mega

bugfix 1
Mega
Replace this file inside your KoD/game subfolder. This fixes:

- Not being able to turn in the quest to Kira.

Thank you very much for the contribution. All hail our Hero Freeze107. May his life be long and his days blessed

 

[kikkos]

what new?
I didn't notice anything new

 

[nyqz]

Some new stuff in the human town and a half dozen scenes with Neve and Bris after that. Neve is always fun, so I'm happy for her to get some attention, human stuff is still pretty bad. Most of the update is assets and code to make the bar scenes work.

 

[Enigmanic]

The quality has certainly dipped. All the new sex scenes use recycled assets and the update has a bunch of typos.

 

[heehatatt]

excuse me but holy shit what????
how does sabia go and forget about serving in the silver tusk, multiple times xD xdddddddd ok boys storyline consistency is dying now

wait, wait wait, don't tell me, she's lying to amelia so that she doesn't have to answer the "where did you serve in a bar" question, yea, I see it now

 

[Deleted member 4418564]

What a disappointment.
Virtually no new stuff in this update, just redraws or redraws of repeatables.
Half the scenes in the game are those repeatables now!
And they somehow spent a gorillon months on it.
Sad!

 

[zizousoccer1997]

Hi guys! I'm having troubles with saves on the new version... i'm getting an error each time. Someone can help me?

 

[heehatatt]

I dunno man, the quality of this 1/3 of an update is just so low. Theres a scene with bris which re-uses the exact same writing, word for word from 0.12. Working at the tavern doesn't drain stamina (I mean I guess stamina is totally pointless now and has been pointless for a while, but still.)


Despite this line your gold doesn't get drained. At the conclusion of the sub version of the bar events you're paid 5 gold, but your gold never actually increases. The new content doesn't respect the game's existing mechanics and story.

Honestly at this point I think the game needs to be scrapped. Its gone to total shit. Wrap up this part of the story ASAP and move on to KoD 2 or another project. There's so much wrong with this game that can only be fixed by remaking it from the ground up imo.

Of course I'm assuming that someone at Hreinn still wants to make a game, and not just do the bare minimum to rake in the patreon buckeroos. This latest update looks like someone doing the barest of minimums.

 

[CourierNPC]

In terms of size, the tavern quest ended up being our largest quest by far, it and the Neve quest together along with their accompanying scenes are around 46k words, larger than some of our older patches entirely - with a lot of fun new scenes with different variants as well!

46K words, my fat ass. More like caught lying again in 46K

 

[CourierNPC]

There's so much wrong with this game that can only be fixed by remaking it from the ground up imo.

Scrapping from scratch isn't going to help that much (and would've taken the game yet another few years down in development hell, I'd assume).

In my opinion, scrap the whole game starting from update 0.10 (meaning the game content is up to 0.8.3 or 0.9.5, 0.8.3 is the safest bet since that's one of the last updates that is worth having) and then work their way back there with a new approach on the story and whatnot

Then again, they are still delusional, didn't care, and seem to lost their will to continue but had no choice but not to stop developing this game -- however long we have tried to tell them what's wrong or what needed to be fixed or suggestions that we've had all this time that got brushed off or simply ignored

If what they care about is the Patrons and not their craft, I couldn't blame them. It's their choice and whatever happens, possibly their own fault.

 

[Neo535990]

Then again, they are still delusional, didn't care, and seem to lost their will to continue

Yup, you can kinda tell that they have stopped caring just from all the small things that aren't there, like not adding the 5 gold. Its an inconsequential amount at this point in the game but not adding the gold just feels weird.

Also in my opinion, I think having some continuity from the first Neve x Sabia scene in the new Neve x Sabia scenes could make the small scenes better. Its also just another small thing that's missed because they might not care about the game that much anymore.

 

[scheriel]

I did actually support this game for quite some time, but I stopped my patronage roughly around the time when they started to postpone updates for some months. With which I could actually live with if the content was acceptable. But in all honesty I think both the art and the story suffered quite heavily over the last few updates. Well I guess the story went to shit when Sierra (?) left the team.
Edit: Also I member you Enigmanic

 

[darkgunner079]

They aren't under any sort of pressure to do better and never will be. If you've ever been on the discord server they basically have the most delusional diehard loyalists you could ever have who will shout down anyone who expresses even a light concern for updates taking months if not a year to release with the same tired "don't like don't be a patron" argument ignoring people who have been fans of the game for a while but can't just ignore the undeniable drop in quality and consistency of updates. It's any content creators wet dream, people who will give you money on the vague pretense that you'll release an update at some point and who will argue with any detractors on your behalf.