Ren'Py Lessons in Love [v0.41.0] [Selebus]

[DeSkel15]

One question that I don't remember are the Gods described as? why the only one I remember is hope who is described as insensitive Or am I remembering wrong and isn't he the insensitive one?


well theoretically we are on the Dark route so that's expected but that doesn't mean I'm happy.

Well, more or less, there's 3 main gods:

• Callous - Presumably HOPE, and related to Light, Nozomu, USER1, Birds/Feathers, Eyes, The Bottom of Everything, Angels, and Summer. Usually talks in Uppercase.
• Calm - Presumably The Wire god, and related to probably what's In Between, The Rope, Computers, Trees, Ramen, The Old District, USER2, Winter, and The Resets. Usually talks with these things "//////...."
• Concerned - Presumably Pareidolia, and related to The Dark, Spiders, Perception, USER3, Spring, and The Mall. Usually talks in Lowercase.

Of course, this is the generalization of it. Pareidolia claims they, the so called Trinity, blend together sometimes. Which could actually just be something it's able to do, and it's trying to cast doubt on who is who, because Pareidolia seems to be an asshole who thinks they know best.

In case you're wondering, it's probably Pareidolia who got rid of and replaced Maya. All that update we were caught in it's web:

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but there was somewhat of a secret message last update.

When this happens in 'Bone-Town', if you look closely you'll see the words:

Spoiler

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"you are caught in my web there is only one way out".

Keeping in mind it's in lower case, and "web" likely refers to spiders, this is probably Pareidolia talking.

Then during the Reset puzzle, you'll find spiders crawling around where the bullets were:

Spoiler

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With a note in lower case telling Sensei "don't think twice!". There's also pictures of Niki and The Old One, but for now, it's probably best to just keep this in mind for the future.

We also, during the recent beach trip in 'Flowerchild', had Pareidolia telling Sensei not to open his eyes the next time he reaches the top of the world aka the rooftop:

Spoiler

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and well, if you played last update, you know what Sensei saw, when he did open his eyes on the rooftop.

Overall: What happened to Maya and the whole Paper City thing seems to have been either planned or caused by Pareidolia.

 

[Pedro4545454]

Regarding that whole topic, understandable, I would definitely prefer a game with less dark and more pleasant themes, both for the girls and for the protagonist and that they reform, the whole world without traumas, and Akira as the name of the game learning to love, It may happen but there is a long way to go to get out of darkness and into purity.
More or less I see that what Selebus wants from the beginning has been, // I'm going to throw out so much shit so that the reader learns to value good things and so on //
but at some point I don't know how far into the abyss he intends to take us... that throughout all these years you have grown fond of many of the characters... perhaps that is the best part beyond denpa and the world as such , and by staying here you already know that yes or yes you are going to suffer for several years...

In part, playing darker themes makes the game different from others, on the other hand, therefore I prefer the game to be absolutely dark here as much as possible, because I feel that if that is the case, unless Selebus is a monster without a soul or any mercy, the purity would be a reward for those who put up with so much shit, my humble opinion, because if this is the beginning of the saddest arc ---> a chapter where 140 affection points were lost and 10 affeccions of ami and 1 of lust were won. the intentions have been shown without disgust.

In Selly's old messages here on the website he had said that he would make us suffer a lot on the Dark route so that we could learn to value all the good things that happened on the pure routes, so yes that was always his goal in this game to make us suffer so learn to value the good things in the world. (My fear is the level of suffering that will be)

 

[Pedro4545454]

In case you're wondering, it's probably Pareidolia who got rid of and replaced Maya. All that update we were caught in it's web:

Yes, when I was playing at 0.36 it was quite evident that he was the one who did this to Maya, that's why he became the god I most want dead these days.

 

[Pedro4545454]

If I think similar, basically Selebus will take us to the same hell that his hands, mind and writing are possibly able to imagine and create. I don't think it has limits, but hey, hold on tight.

Well, if he doesn't kill Akira and Yumi, I'll take it in stride. I've already lost Maya who was my top 1, losing Akira who is my top 2 and Yumi who is top 3 would be a huge pain.

 

[hcguy]

However she seemed unfazed since Rin kissing her didn't leave her running away or fainting.

Maybe if Rin had thrown Sana to the ground and slapped her around while kissing her she could have triggered Sana's really unfortunate fetish.

 

[Bingoogus]

It's not the game getting dark that is causing me to lose interest, i want shit to get fucked up, i enjoy fucked up, what's starting to drag on me is the waffling on with little to no progression of the story. For every scene or chunk of dialogue of progress there's ten times more meaningless waffle and empty scenes where everyone uses a bunch of words but end up actually saying for little of consequence or at least enjoyable conversation, it's just treading water most of the time.

Selly has always waffled on but things used to be a lot tighter, there'd be tonnes of riveting discussion about what happened here, there's a lot less now and a good chunk of it is lost in the stickiest of sticks, trying to plumb answers from severely abstracted clues. Interesting insights and discoveries just seem a lot rarer now, it's why i was in such a good mood to wake up to a bunch of the good stuff today.

 

[DeSkel15]

How would Sekai get in there? for the issue of los angels? at the toys event?
That's why it confuses me that Sensei only sees her but Sana doesn't.
Well, it's related at least Nozomu/Hope... like another angel.
Spiders related to kaori and reinforces the theory of sekai organs at least. Also the spiders are related to Ami through some happy events, and the event that introduces Kaori is because of Ami, which I don't think is a coincidence.

Well, Sekai translates to World, so she/it is probably "The World Itself" that comes up at times. The Sekai in Toys and Sekai that Sensei talks to at times, probably aren't the same Sekai, although it isn't entirely clear. Supernatural Entity vs Hallucination.

Anyway, if I were to guess, Nao, and The Scary Sekai/The World Itself, are probably the gods, that the gods we know worship, as Nao seemed to imply that was a thing:

Spoiler

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They seem to merely take the forms of Ami and Sekai, then watch as Sensei breaks:

Spoiler

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Of course, the gods we know are mysterious enough. Let alone whatever the hell they are.

Edit: As for Kaori, she's called herself:

Spoiler

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So, either she is Pareidolia's Mistress or what she thinks is wrong, which wouldn't be too surprising.

 

[skwada]

It's not the game getting dark that is causing me to lose interest, i want shit to get fucked up, i enjoy fucked up, what's starting to drag on me is the waffling on with little to no progression of the story. For every scene or chunk of dialogue of progress there's ten times more meaningless waffle and empty scenes where everyone uses a bunch of words but end up actually saying for little of consequence or at least enjoyable conversation, it's just treading water most of the time.

Selly has always waffled on but things used to be a lot tighter, there'd be tonnes of riveting discussion about what happened here, there's a lot less now and a good chunk of it is lost in the stickiest of sticks, trying to plumb answers from severely abstracted clues. Interesting insights and discoveries just seem a lot rarer now, it's why i was in such a good mood to wake up to a bunch of the good stuff today.

Agreed. I've been thinking for a while now that this game would probably benefit from having an editor going through the entire script and trimming out all the fluff - could probably cut out a big chunk of the word count without losing anything of value imo.

I've also been contemplating making an alternate version of the game that is just a pure VN, with none of the time-wasting "gameplay". The reasoning is that if you have the freedom to decide on a canonical order for all the events, then you have full control of the pacing and can spread out the humor/dark stuff/etc appropriately. Like sometimes you have a dark/depressing event, followed up by an event that's just all silly jokes, with characters having over-the-top reactions to trivial things, which is pretty jarring (less noticeable when you play a single update at a time tho).

 

[DeSkel15]

Actually, it's probably safe to say Kaori and Pareidolia are related. Kaori ignored Maya:

Spoiler

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And Pareidolia seemed to make sure to get rid of her.

There's also how Maya had no idea who Kaori was, and both Yumi and Yuki thought she was dead, so it's possible Pareidolia brought her into this timeline to get to this point, albeit that could just be a coincidence.

Does make me wonder how Kaori will react to New Maya, though.

 

[Pedro4545454]

Spoiler: theories that I remembered I was creating in this version involving the gods..

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[Pedro4545454]

There's also how Maya had no idea who Kaori was, and both Yumi and Yuki thought she was dead, so it's possible Pareidolia brought her into this timeline to get to this point, albeit that could just be a coincidence.

I don't think it was a coincidence since the gods have already resurrected someone who should have been dead, which was Himawari and now she is working for them, in addition to the fact that Kaori can be possessed by Sekai, which could even be the reason for them to bring her back to life, so I don't think this would have been a mere coincidence.

 

[DeSkel15]

I don't think it was a coincidence since the gods have already resurrected someone who should have been dead, which was Himawari and now she is working for them, in addition to the fact that Kaori can be possessed by Sekai, which could even be the reason for them to bring her back to life, so I don't think this would have been a mere coincidence.

I'm not sure about The Shapeshifter's resurrection. I know people think she's the baby that Ayane lost, but The Shapeshifter implied her and Ayane's relationship would be a future one:

Spoiler

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Not to mention, The Shapeshifter shows up way before Ayane loses the baby. In the First Happy Event, and the Chapter 1 'Scientific Research' Main Event as a secret scene.

Ayane's Unnamed Baby that she lost might just be The Unnamed Baby:

Spoiler

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And possibly The Shapeshifter's sibling.

On the other hand, Yasu's god has apparently brought someone back:

Spoiler

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Whether that's Yasu or someone else, I'm not sure.

Ironically, HOPE might be the answer after all.

 

[Pedro4545454]

Spoiler: Uta and Akira

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[Pedro4545454]

Ironically, HOPE might be the answer after all.

It becomes even more ironic when we remember that Himawari told Akira if he was to choose one of the 3 gods, she told him to choose the least insensitive one, that HOPE is the insensitive god.

 

[Pedro4545454]

I'm not sure about The Shapeshifter's resurrection. I know people think she's the baby that Ayane lost, but The Shapeshifter implied her and Ayane's relationship would be a future one:

Spoiler

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Not to mention, The Shapeshifter shows up way before Ayane loses the baby. In the First Happy Event, and the Chapter 1 'Scientific Research' Main Event as a secret scene.

Ayane's Unnamed Baby that she lost might just be The Unnamed Baby:

Spoiler

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And possibly The Shapeshifter's sibling.

On the other hand, Yasu's god has apparently brought someone back:

Spoiler

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Whether that's Yasu or someone else, I'm not sure.

Ironically, HOPE might be the answer after all.

From what I remember, people came up with the theory that she gained some powers from the gods since she can change shape, read minds, have knowledge of the future, if she could time travel between events I wouldn't be surprised. (Of course I'm just theorizing, I'm not stating any facts)

 

[Angra Shadow]

The new chapter menu makes me think that the Harem route will last until Chapter 6, which does fit my estimation of how long it would take for Akira to romance all 35 girls and turn them into an actual harem.

The overall update was another mixed bag for me. I liked the Ami and Akira stuff a lot, but the rest was kinda just another waste of time batch of girls interacting which at this point I've lost all interest in tbh. I also don't really like how some of the characters are being handled, like Rin and Otoha's breakup being off-screened and seemingly not leaving too strong of an impact on Rin (feels like her unresolved deep depression from the end of Ch2 is just dropped for now), and Ayane being scared of Ami again and unwilling to confront her is disappointing after how the last Beach update ended.

 

[crustlord12]

Agreed. I've been thinking for a while now that this game would probably benefit from having an editor going through the entire script and trimming out all the fluff - could probably cut out a big chunk of the word count without losing anything of value imo.

I've also been contemplating making an alternate version of the game that is just a pure VN, with none of the time-wasting "gameplay". The reasoning is that if you have the freedom to decide on a canonical order for all the events, then you have full control of the pacing and can spread out the humor/dark stuff/etc appropriately. Like sometimes you have a dark/depressing event, followed up by an event that's just all silly jokes, with characters having over-the-top reactions to trivial things, which is pretty jarring (less noticeable when you play a single update at a time tho).

Hah, you sound like me. I've long criticized the word count brag (more words than the bible? How is that a good thing at face value?) Brevity is the soul of wit, and all that.

I definitely do prefer more verbosity over less (there are a ton of games on this site that have terrible writing, where they just say "I got up and left and now I'm at the next place") but Sel could absolutely stand to dial it back a bit. Flowery prose is nice but it's starting to outweigh its message, like empty calories of words.

I've ALSO tried to make a linear mode/replay mod of this game, as you mentioned, and holy FUCK there are a lot of events to sort through and put in order. I gave up trying to figure out the canon order of certain events, but I might get back into it. The wiki is super slow to load pages so it's a hassle.

 

[Angra Shadow]

Hah, you sound like me. I've long criticized the word count brag (more words than the bible? How is that a good thing at face value?) Brevity is the soul of wit, and all that.

I definitely do prefer more verbosity over less (there are a ton of games on this site that have terrible writing, where they just say "I got up and left and now I'm at the next place") but Sel could absolutely stand to dial it back a bit. Flowery prose is nice but it's starting to outweigh its message, like empty calories of words.

It really does feel like he's just trying to flex or meet a word count a lot of the times, like my god that narration about Tsubasa, Touka and Tsukasa was so unnecessary imo.

 

[Apollo259]

I'm not sure about The Shapeshifter's resurrection. I know people think she's the baby that Ayane lost, but The Shapeshifter implied her and Ayane's relationship would be a future one:

Spoiler

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Not to mention, The Shapeshifter shows up way before Ayane loses the baby. In the First Happy Event, and the Chapter 1 'Scientific Research' Main Event as a secret scene.

Ayane's Unnamed Baby that she lost might just be The Unnamed Baby:

Spoiler

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And possibly The Shapeshifter's sibling.

On the other hand, Yasu's god has apparently brought someone back:

Spoiler

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Whether that's Yasu or someone else, I'm not sure.

Ironically, HOPE might be the answer after all.

There is some HEX at the end of December 28, 2020 (Clay & Clockwork) right before Untitled starts that says: (shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh - The end of days is upon us - Have you found it yet? - The paradox?) And I'm quite sure the paradox it's referring to is Himawari/Shapeshifter being the baby Ayane lost and all the time line impossibilities that entails.

Spoiler: HEX

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At least when I read it the first time I stopped there for a good 5-10min thinking about what the paradox would be. Didn't come up with anything and moved on. Then I got to the the part in Untitled where you have to name the baby. Then It clicked, I realised she must be the paradox and my mind exploded.

Spoiler: Untitled

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I guess that's just a long winded way of saying that the timeline around her not making chronological sense, at least to me, does not discount her from being Ayane lost child.

 

[Angiboat]

It becomes even more ironic when we remember that Himawari told Akira if he was to choose one of the 3 gods, she told him to choose the least insensitive one, that HOPE is the insensitive god.

On the other hand, didn't Maya ask him to take the least callous one?