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

3.90 star(s) 77 Votes
Discussion Reviews (77)
Serena

Serena

Newbie
Aug 13, 2017
84
115
VVTS said:
I love this game, but, now...
Now it seems to me that the game makers made Kingdom of Deception on the Renpy engine for nothing.
At first (first 2-3 years) I thought it was a good technical decision.
But after eight years...
I can assume that one of the most important problems is not only the visual part, but also the code.
Making a full-fledged and rather large rpg game on an engine designed for visual novels is not an easy task, and the mechanics of renpy itself only make it harder.
I think if Kingdom of Deception had been made on RPG Maker, like Noxian Nights.
A lot of the problems would have been avoided.
If it was an RPG Maker or Unity engine, some of the event-quests could have been bypassed or tackled much later.
But with renpy you will always move forward with only small offshoots.
That's fine for a novella, but not for a novelistic rpg with a huge world map.
Speaking of artwork...
I don't like these three,
View attachment 4160764 View attachment 4160760 View attachment 4160757
I don't know why exactly they are made with such a difference in level (I've looked at the latest drawings and they don't look bad in my opinion).
But these three... Maybe I'm wrong, but it feels like they didn't use references.
Also, I'm not intimidated by Sabia's more lush form, but it would be so much cooler if we had the option to increase her volume on quests ourselves (breasts, ass, belly, and so on).
( Many may laugh sadly, but! Defenestration has this implemented! And there the game seems to be made by just two people too. )
But what really frustrated me was the blocking of the ability to control my choice of dominant or submissive.
I've always tried to balance being able to both submit and resist, but now that freedom of choice has been taken away from me.
Worse, losing this moment, I went through the event with the minotaur on the path of resistance, we returned to camp, the relationship normalized, a few days passed, and I finalized my choice by throwing points into submission.
I return to the bandit camp and... The Minotaur considers Sabia his submissive whore...
But I chose resistance in his event!
The thing is, the developer probably just waved it off, though they could have spent a little time and implemented condition branching.
Honestly, that's what pissed me off the most.
I last played Kingdom of Deception in the spring or summer of this year.
And it seems to have taken me out of my sanity a lot more than I thought it would, since I'm still writing this post.
Click to expand...
I agree honestly, I feel like you have seen the recent code, the new code is just well a mess to say the least be honest, the combat system is decent but not something they can't replicate or outright abandon if they moved the game to a different engine, the problem is that they probably won't do it.
 
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shujuku

shujuku

Member
Oct 11, 2023
209
642
Serena said:
I agree honestly, I feel like you have seen the recent code, the new code is just well a mess to say the least be honest, the combat system is decent but not something they can't replicate or outright abandon if they moved the game to a different engine, the problem is that they probably won't do it.
Click to expand...
The game had a slow poison ever since the start. Lets look at the team. Sierra was the writer and ?coder? while Nomo drew the art. This worked fine until Sierra left the project for whatever reasons and now the whole connection between KoDs fantasy world and bringing it into writing was severed. This is why you see such a downgrade when you analyze the Horned Garbage Collection Run around Event to earlier plots. Now all we have gotten is actually zero relevant plot and anything introduced has not even progressed Sabia's original goal of taking revenge. Its just someones glorified orc sex simulator of their MC.
 
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J

Jinsoyun

Active Member
Sep 28, 2018
709
1,342
shujuku said:
The game had a slow poison ever since the start. Lets look at the team. Sierra was the writer and ?coder? while Nomo drew the art. This worked fine until Sierra left the project for whatever reasons and now the whole connection between KoDs fantasy world and bringing it into writing was severed. This is why you see such a downgrade when you analyze the Horned Garbage Collection Run around Event to earlier plots. Now all we have gotten is actually zero relevant plot and anything introduced has not even progressed Sabia's original goal of taking revenge. Its just someones glorified orc sex simulator of their MC.
Click to expand...
Nomo came up with the plot from the start as well. The switch from Sierra to Monsinne absolutely undercut Hreinn's ability to create immersion, but the plot has been lost on something else.

The plan for this game was always very ambitious for a small team of 2-3 and so a lot of paths and mechanics had to be cut (dajrab, freedom/slavery, raiding, puzzles, etc) and also it seems like there were no detailed long term plans for the plot from the start of development either. Best example was the massive debate for Sabia to leave the camp and explore the map vs more content for the characters we already met. If there was a plan, this debate could have been avoided or stopped rather quickly. Sierra's departure was also around this time and to this day she was the only person on the team who had a talent for official communications, so things became messy.

After this point Hreinn had openly wrote each time how they will start thinking about what the next patch will contain after the release of the newest one. So basically no forward planning, just taking everything step by step. Unfortunately the dev team consists of an artist/team lead who is bogged down by making unimportant assets, a coder who has been overwhelmed by unnecessary game mechanics several times and a writer who seem hell bent on derailing the story and the MC, so progress grinds to a halt.
 
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m107a1

m107a1

Newbie
Jan 5, 2018
23
9
Liebely said:
View attachment 3964097

Because this is still relevant to the conversation, it's page 666 which is clearly why I was summoned, and somebody asked me.

Here's the dump of the stuff I had from back in the day.
(I don't remember if there's a rule against direct links like there are on many forum boards so...)
https:<slash><slash>easyupload<dot>io<slash>pakqvx
It's not properly organized, it lacks the $50 art packs because that was way too much monthly, and I wasn't around for Version 1.0 so I never received that so it's incomplete.
The reason why 2016-07 and 2017-05 are bigger files is because I think they accidentally sent me the link to the higher quality packs. I'd double check but Patreon deleted all the old messages from my profile inbox after one of their many bad updates.

Upload is only set to 30 days so if somebody wants to take it and upload it somewhere better go ahead.
Click to expand...
Can anyone reupload?
 
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Birdnman993

Birdnman993

Well-Known Member
Dec 6, 2021
1,616
2,511
Snowmanly2 said:
Bro can't someone just take their IP and make an offshoot game or something, this is a goldmine that's literally being exploited by tards.

We need a hero to save us.
Click to expand...
The way I see it, either someone picks up the project at once, or give him a shot in the temple so that he stops suffering in agony.
 
X

xhyde

Newbie
Dec 17, 2019
17
36
Jinsoyun said:
and a writer who seem hell bent on derailing the story and the MC, so progress grinds to a halt.
Click to expand...
I've said this multiple times, but hole shit, what the fuck was the writer doing during nomos downtime? they months for him to work out a detailed plan, yet the man apparently procrastinated the entire time away
 
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S

souldead341

Engaged Member
Oct 16, 2017
2,455
2,553
xhyde said:
I've said this multiple times, but hole shit, what the fuck was the writer doing during nomos downtime? they months for him to work out a detailed plan, yet the man apparently procrastinated the entire time away
Click to expand...
He's claimed various family / health issues (IIRC) and is also working on a different game with a different patreon. So like many patreon creators, he's trying to milk multiple groups to increase revenue with minimal work.
 
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CourierNPC

CourierNPC

Well-Known Member
Jul 12, 2017
1,181
1,134
xhyde said:
I've said this multiple times, but hole shit, what the fuck was the writer doing during nomos downtime? they months for him to work out a detailed plan, yet the man apparently procrastinated the entire time away
Click to expand...
More like the team had lost its direction of where the hell they should go with this game since nobody can steer the boat good enough to find a shore and try their best lifting it all up.

The expectations after Noxian Nights were so great they probably have no idea how to deal with it.
 
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A

Azurite

Newbie
Jul 28, 2017
42
70
I don't know, it feels more like laziness than not knowing where to go. Everything was there from the start. Sabia got betrayed by humans, she meets orcs. From there she either finish as leader of the orcs or the one just under the new leader of the orcs or join the humans to get her revenge. You could even create a final act with a secret/hidden bad person behind the scene if you really want to but it's not even necessary.
 
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3.90 star(s) 77 Votes