Ren'Py Lessons in Love [v0.45.0] [Selebus]

[Hfjahxhcjr]

Also, I'm just now realizing that the Tsukiokas are probably inspired by Sensei's girlfriends...

Tsubasa is Sekai.

Touka is Niki.

Tsukasa is Maya.

All with the letter T, and responsible for getting Sensei into an apartment, and trying to get him into tutoring...

Reminds me of some confusion I had about the similarities between something Tsubasa said in "Playing God" and something a narrator said during the first beach event in "See You in the Morning".

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Initially, I figured that the narrator during this part of the beach event was Akira's memories of talking to Tsubasa in a previous timeloop. I thought it was interesting since the conversation with Tsubasa happened at some point after Maya mentioned that Akira never made it that far. It would imply that Maya's memories were also manipulated or reset before (like Tsuneyo mentions later).

However, if we start comparing Tsubasa with Sekai (or atleast consider some external factor influencing what Tsubasa says or how Akira hears it), then it opens some new options.
It could be that it mirrors a conversation from before the timeloop, although that would raise the question about with who that conversation was, and what makes it important to repeat it.
Since the talk of the narrator transitions into talk about being a tree, it could also be that it was a message from Wires, although that would still raise the question about the importance of the message and imply that Tsubasa is in some way related to Wires.

I'm probably looking too much into something that is not important, but if anyone has some idea/theory, I would be interested in knowing.

 

[vehemental]

To clarify a common misconception, no, no one gets banned from our discord just for existing here, and anyone who comes in here pretending they were probably knows exactly what they were banned for and doesn't want to admit it in public like this nazi here.

Funny Nazi story - it's always nice to see real assholes face consequences - but make no mistake, I was banned in the Discord because of one post I made here offering the slightest pushback to Selly's behavior in a joking way - which I know because it was at a point when I hadn't been active in any Discords in a number of weeks.

After that point, when I started offering fair criticism of his behavior here in a way that wasn't just trying to laugh it off, he straight up lied about me having been "reprimanded" somehow for a dumb but completely benign joke I made almost a year prior, in order to respond to my criticism with a petty ad hominem attack.

Just so we're clear, I made a timeline for you. Forgive me for still keeping track, but I still find this to be a fascinating case study of some of the potential pitfalls of crowdfunding independent creators, and if this game wasn't the way it was, I could have made some cash out of a Youtube video on the story, given it's so incredible.

The ongoing state of play:

• LiL has completely stagnated in support growth for more than half of the time it's been in development at this point.
• This is literally unique among games that are still 1) very regularly updated, 2) with significant amounts of new content that 3) has remained somewhat consistent in quality.
• For a multitude of very obvious reasons, it's clear this has had a negative impact on Selly's mindset and by extension, the quality of the game, given he refuses to let anyone else work on even the parts he hates doing, like animations and headpats.

Why?

• This all started with the loss of Patreon, after the following sequence of events:
  • Selly treated a long-time patron poorly, who got butthurt and reported the game to Patreon. There were plenty of games at higher and lower revenues that broke TOS on Patreon at the time - games were not being actively monitored then like they are now
  • Patreon placed the page under review and gave Selly a second chance, which was objectively quite nice of them, given, you know, the entire nature of the game being very clearly and fundamentally against their TOS
  • Selly used this second chance to spend months on the Huggy Boy remake, which was such a ridiculous and stupid bad-faith parody of not only itself, but Patreon altogether, that it seemingly only served to insult the intelligence of the Patreon staff he was working with, because:
  • Patreon's TOS has always been clear that they don't allow games that have TOS-breaking content available as patches outside of the platform - something the characters in the Huggy Boy version explicitly stated, repeatedly, in their actual dialogue that anyone could read on-screen in a series of constant fourth-wall breaks
  • Predictably, he lost the use of the platform. Worst of all, they personally slighted him by not taking the time and effort to explain that it was because he was intentionally subverting their policies. LiL's days on it were obviously always going to be numbered, but he chose to go out by playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes, and I don't think many of his patrons appreciated it
• Selly's continued takeaway from this experience is that Patreon were the ones who didn't understand their own TOS or train their employees properly, and Patreon were the ones who personally fucked him over. (Source: a rant by Sana that remains in the game to this day explicitly explaining exactly this)
• In the same rant, Selly also insists that he should have been allowed to be a petulant man-child to Patreon as long as he made them money, in the most extremely ironic bit of hypocrisy of them all, given he's never extended any iota of this privilege to his own patrons who give him money. The receipts for this are in this thread, many of them have posted here, including myself as a prime example.
• The stagnation has continued, however, most notably because of its removal from the Latest Updates page here:
  • After an ongoing, fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of piracy and the value of his work, Selly decided to launch a hate raid on this forum by directing his ever-shrinking legion of dickriders to spam the support inbox and this thread with memes and bad-faith debate bro shit
  • But he did show some restraint. The memes insinuating putting the staff here to death for their purported crimes of treason "hypocrisy" and "selective rule enforcement" were kept in the Discord server - and it was all done with anime girls and cartoon swords anyway, so of course it was just playful and didn't mean anything, and me even bringing it up makes me a pussy, of course...
  • So while these combined efforts were harmless and benign, he was unfortunately found guilty of the unforgiveable crimes of being cringe and annoying, so the game was removed from the Latest Updates page and all links to his pages were removed.
  • Given the explosive growth of the game after these actions, it's apparent they were the correct ones to get what he wanted (more money).
    • Note: It's not just the game's removal from Latest Updates driving the lack of growth - Champion of Realms was also removed, and it's still been growing, just at a much slower rate than before.
      You must be registered to see the links
      • (I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate that they might not be in the habit of banning their own patrons over slights, but I could be wrong of course...)
• Then there's the DRM.
  • One notable example of how to implement DRM in an indie game is from Heartbound, by, funnily enough, a company called Pirate Software (named so I'm sure to poison search results of people trying to pirate their games). If you pirate it, a scuffed sea shanty with a "Yarr!" starts playing and a little dialogue popup keeps showing up encouraging you to tweet a screenshot of the "bug" on the screen to the developer so he can laugh at you. It's a little aggro towards people for whom $5-10 is a lot of money, but you know, whatever.
  • The way DRM was implemented in LiL was not a funny joke. It's not a proselytizing diatribe intended to sway the opinion of the user and convince them to gib Selly money. The girls don't start ignoring Sensei or rejecting his advances in the latest scenes. Ami doesn't mysteriously become the only girl who shows up in class and steers Sensei away from the series of blood trails leading to a dumpster, with the game closing with her thanking the player for not paying $5 so they could be together forever. Sensei doesn't even get locked in an inter-dimensional liminal space with the Tentacle Fuck Machine for the rest of eternity.
    • There are an infinite number of ways DRM could have been implemented in this game with no or even moderate levels of malice behind them, that could have even been consistent with the universe and maybe even funny(!) - but doing so would have taken some amount of additional effort and some amount of self-awareness that not all of the people who would fall victim to it are the dirty pirates on F95Zone "trying to run this game into the ground" from his perspective.
    • Instead, it was designed to be as vindictive and malicious as possible without running into actual legal trouble, and newer players who wanted the most content and didn't keep up with the game were always going to be affected the most, because the people following this thread were tipped off that the DRM was coming.
      • Side note for further irony: newer players, who have avoided the mountain of baggage surrounding a dev and who want the most content, are by far the most likely to become new supporters of a game that has a dev with a mountain of baggage surrounding him.
    • I know this is all bleeding-heart shit, but when you delete all the saves of this game, you're wiping out 50-100+ hours of effort on the part of the player, which is quite a bit for a potential "lost revenue" of $5 by the developer.
  • From my perspective, on the day the update with the DRM came out, as one of the people who was specifically waiting for it so we could crack the DRM (because we knew that Selly was going to go scorched earth mode and hurt his playerbase) - I had to adopt the role of a fan of a game who wanted to protect members of the game's fanbase from the depredations of the game's own developer, in the interest of that developer not continuing to shoot his own future success in the foot. I have never been in a more ridiculous situation in my life. This shit is a comedy sketch. It's absurdist and surreal.

In closing:

• Everyone here just wants to see the game succeed, and we're able to recognize that the dev's ongoing poor behavior is the biggest cause of it not doing so.
• Everyone in the Discord just wants to see the game succeed, but they're not even allowed to acknowledge the dev's role in this because your boy is as thin-skinned of a tin-pot online dictator as they come.

Mr. Fluffguck, I hope you continue to be careful about staying inside of the extremely narrow window of acceptable dickriding "behavior" Selly demands. The $70+ I already gave him, and everything I might have in the future, still wasn't enough to placate his little ego to allow one joke about him wanting to buy a Lambo, and unfortunately I doubt your status as a mod would be enough either, even if you broached the topic with the kid gloves it requires.

Unless you just think this shit is normal and reasonable, I guess. He's a misunderstood genius

 

[DeSkel15]

DeSkel15, do you replay the entire game on a regular basis or just have a good memory?

Mostly good memory. I'm a little like Tsuneyo:

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[Dc345]

To stoke the flames of LIL discussion what's everybody's favorite theme? I personally like the Tsukoika manor theme the most.

 

[Riolol]

To stoke the flames of LIL discussion what's everybody's favorite theme? I personally like the Tsukoika manor theme the most.

Not sure about favorite but I find Molly's theme quite calming

 

[Duskreyn]

To stoke the flames of LIL discussion what's everybody's favorite theme? I personally like the Tsukoika manor theme the most.

Definitely for me I think it is Side Character, Sara's theme, and maybe another good Io's theme, and in a more general area
My top 5 in no specific order would be, Meant to Be, Glasswalker, Confort, Sensei, Paper City.

 

[DeSkel15]

Reminds me of some confusion I had about the similarities between something Tsubasa said in "Playing God" and something a narrator said during the first beach event in "See You in the Morning".

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Initially, I figured that the narrator during this part of the beach event was Akira's memories of talking to Tsubasa in a previous timeloop. I thought it was interesting since the conversation with Tsubasa happened at some point after Maya mentioned that Akira never made it that far. It would imply that Maya's memories were also manipulated or reset before (like Tsuneyo mentions later).

However, if we start comparing Tsubasa with Sekai (or atleast consider some external factor influencing what Tsubasa says or how Akira hears it), then it opens some new options.
It could be that it mirrors a conversation from before the timeloop, although that would raise the question about with who that conversation was, and what makes it important to repeat it.
Since the talk of the narrator transitions into talk about being a tree, it could also be that it was a message from Wires, although that would still raise the question about the importance of the message and imply that Tsubasa is in some way related to Wires.

I'm probably looking too much into something that is not important, but if anyone has some idea/theory, I would be interested in knowing.

Well, I do have a Theory about the Tsukiokas, but it isn't quite concrete yet.

In the 'Somewhere Far From Here' Chapter 3 Main Event (before the 2 month Time Skip to Beachmas that lead to Sekai's restoration), we had Yasu implying the Tsukioka estate shouldn't exist:

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Yasu also mentions an interference that seems related to the Beach:

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Taking into account Sekai is restored at the Beach soon afterwards, seems to have plans for Yasu, and Yasu then warns Sensei about things that shouldn't exist in her 'Hand of god' Chapter 3 Event (which happens to be where Sensei ended up back during Beachmas if Sekai puppeteers him, Futaba, and Makoto):

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

It seems likely that Sekai and The Tsukiokas may be related, and possibly shouldn't exist. (There's also how the Tsukiokas seem inexperienced with the World which may be a rich trope, but could also simply be because they actually haven't existed that long.)

Then the fact Yasu has ended up more or less adopted by the Tsukiokas, seems very suspicious to me.

Frankly, it seems like the Tsukiokas have adopted the Summer (Callous) god's girl (Yasu), and have been taking in the Old District girls like Chika and Chinami who may be related to the Winter (Calm) god, while giving Sensei a fuckable married mother figure, like Sekai (Tsubasa), a best friend support system that cares about him, like Niki (Touka), and a bossy wizard that he will tutor, like Maya (Tsukasa).

We've also seen Touka wearing a Butterfly Hairpin which is something Sekai usually wears:

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

And there's how Yasu implies Autumn colors are Red and Yellow:

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Sekai is red. The Tsukiokas are all shades of Yellow if you look at their name colors.

Overall: It seems like the Tsukiokas are related to Sekai, who may be The World Itself, and although not confirmed, may be the Autumn/Fall god and possibly USER4.

I could definitely be wrong, but I think the Tsukiokas and the World Itself/Sekai will play important roles in the near future.

Anyway, it seems like Sekai may be a Narrator:

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Seems related to the Beach, where the Narrator said that stuff, and seems related to Tsubasa who said that stuff later.

So, Tsubasa saying this may be another hint at her side in things.

 

[fdsasdf_p]

To stoke the flames of LIL discussion what's everybody's favorite theme? I personally like the Tsukoika manor theme the most.

That one is my wife's favorite. I played it on carplay by accident when driving her to the airport. She loved it, thinking it was elegant and beautiful.

She does not know how I know the track

 

[vehemental]

• Then there's the DRM.
  • One notable example of how to implement DRM in an indie game is from Heartbound, by, funnily enough, a company called Pirate Software (named so I'm sure to poison search results of people trying to pirate their games). If you pirate it, a scuffed sea shanty with a "Yarr!" starts playing and a little dialogue popup keeps showing up encouraging you to tweet a screenshot of the "bug" on the screen to the developer so he can laugh at you. It's a little aggro towards people for whom $5-10 is a lot of money, but you know, whatever.
  • The way DRM was implemented in LiL was not a funny joke. It's not a proselytizing diatribe intended to sway the opinion of the user and convince them to gib Selly money. The girls don't start ignoring Sensei or rejecting his advances in the latest scenes. Ami doesn't mysteriously become the only girl who shows up in class and steers Sensei away from the series of blood trails leading to a dumpster, with the game closing with her thanking the player for not paying $5 so they could be together forever. Sensei doesn't even get locked in an inter-dimensional liminal space with the Tentacle Fuck Machine for the rest of eternity.
    • There are an infinite number of ways DRM could have been implemented in this game with no or even moderate levels of malice behind them, that could have even been consistent with the universe and maybe even funny(!) - but doing so would have taken some amount of additional effort and some amount of self-awareness that not all of the people who would fall victim to it are the dirty pirates on F95Zone "trying to run this game into the ground" from his perspective.
    • Instead, it was designed to be as vindictive and malicious as possible without running into actual legal trouble, and newer players who wanted the most content and didn't keep up with the game were always going to be affected the most, because the people following this thread were tipped off that the DRM was coming.
      • Side note for further irony: newer players, who have avoided the mountain of baggage surrounding a dev and who want the most content, are by far the most likely to become new supporters of a game that has a dev with a mountain of baggage surrounding him.
    • I know this is all bleeding-heart shit, but when you delete all the saves of this game, you're wiping out 50-100+ hours of effort on the part of the player, which is quite a bit for a potential "lost revenue" of $5 by the developer.
  • From my perspective, on the day the update with the DRM came out, as one of the people who was specifically waiting for it so we could crack the DRM (because we knew that Selly was going to go scorched earth mode and hurt his playerbase) - I had to adopt the role of a fan of a game who wanted to protect members of the game's fanbase from the depredations of the game's own developer, in the interest of that developer not continuing to shoot his own future success in the foot. I have never been in a more ridiculous situation in my life. This shit is a comedy sketch. It's absurdist and surreal.

Fluffguck, I completely forgot to bring up the DRM in my first post, so I added a bit more context for you to hopefully not conveniently ignore. Hopefully you stick around, I don't think very many of the people who actively hate Selly are around anymore. It's a weird and unhealthy mindset to have over a silly porn game anyway.

 

[vehemental]

I'll publicly admit why... I was a SS sub. I'm more "old school" and prefer Forums over Discord.

When I was Banned, I Asked Selebus on SS why and he promptly responded that a MOD on his Discord Banned me for sharing subscriber content. As everyone here knows I shared from Previews images & event titles and Update breakdowns from the Progress Tracker, Nothing Else. Reason why was people on here were asking about it and I felt that by doing this would increase hype for the game and possibly Increase Subscribership which would be in Selebus' favor. Plus No Where in his Rules page say that Sharing Specifically from Previews or Progress Tracker was off limits. But I do remember seeing that Bans could be reversed by appeal in the Rules page; So that's what I did. I Sent Selebus another message on SS asking exactly what I did wrong, so I'd know for sure, then explain why I did it should he say what I did was exactly what I did or argue if its something I didn't do. But instead He chose to Not reply at all and Ghosted me instead. So to me Fluffguck, I find you disingenuous.

Just to put this into context, back when I thought Being a DIK was a game worth playing, the developer was also famously anti-piracy and hated this place too, but oddly enough, one of his own Discord mods consistently leaked patron-only status updates of the game and the preview renders - just not the wallpapers and stuff that were for 10$+ subs.

How strange it's a good thing that game isn't wildly successful partly because the dev understands marketing or anything...

 

[wamzzz]

Well, I do have a Theory about the Tsukiokas, but it isn't quite concrete yet.

In the 'Somewhere Far From Here' Chapter 3 Main Event (before the 2 month Time Skip to Beachmas that lead to Sekai's restoration), we had Yasu implying the Tsukioka estate shouldn't exist:

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Yasu also mentions an interference that seems related to the Beach:

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Taking into account Sekai is restored at the Beach soon afterwards, seems to have plans for Yasu, and Yasu then warns Sensei about things that shouldn't exist in her 'Hand of god' Chapter 3 Event (which happens to be where Sensei ended up back during Beachmas if Sekai puppeteers him, Futaba, and Makoto):

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

It seems likely that Sekai and The Tsukiokas may be related, and possibly shouldn't exist. (There's also how the Tsukiokas seem inexperienced with the World which may be a rich trope, but could also simply be because they actually haven't existed that long.)

Then the fact Yasu has ended up more or less adopted by the Tsukiokas, seems very suspicious to me.

Frankly, it seems like the Tsukiokas have adopted the Summer (Callous) god's girl (Yasu), and have been taking in the Old District girls like Chika and Chinami who may be related to the Winter (Calm) god, while giving Sensei a fuckable married mother figure, like Sekai (Tsubasa), a best friend support system that cares about him, like Niki (Touka), and a bossy wizard that he will tutor, like Maya (Tsukasa).

We've also seen Touka wearing a Butterfly Hairpin which is something Sekai usually wears:

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

And there's how Yasu implies Autumn colors are Red and Yellow:

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Sekai is red. The Tsukiokas are all shades of Yellow if you look at their name colors.

Overall: It seems like the Tsukiokas are related to Sekai, who may be The World Itself, and although not confirmed, may be the Autumn/Fall god and possibly USER4.

I could definitely be wrong, but I think the Tsukiokas and the World Itself/Sekai will play important roles in the near future.

Anyway, it seems like Sekai may be a Narrator:

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Seems related to the Beach, where the Narrator said that stuff, and seems related to Tsubasa who said that stuff later.

So, Tsubasa saying this may be another hint at her side in things.

That's interesting. I do remember Imani wears the same butterfly hairpin but she's also more associated with blue. With the Nakayamas being pink and associated with spring, I think there must be some connection there and it's getting the wheels spinning. Imani's burns and backstory, spring's themes of restoration, it being the last unvisited season and Noriko restoring Akira's memories I feel like there's something there. With Autumn representing death and decay, all the past events with Maya and a broken Sensei it would contrast with Spring.

Perhaps some foreshadowing that our last season will be one of rebirth after the dark route is finally over. I'm not sure though, I feel like there's something there but it's just out of reach.

 

[Wardtnaci]

Just to put this into context, back when I thought Being a DIK was a game worth playing, the developer was also famously anti-piracy and hated this place too, but oddly enough, one of his own Discord mods consistently leaked patron-only status updates of the game and the preview renders - just not the wallpapers and stuff that were for 10$+ subs.

How strange it's a good thing that game isn't wildly successful partly because the dev understands marketing or anything...

The best form of advertising that I have learned is "Genuine Word of Mouth", which is very hard to come by these days, and some visual aids. As I have said before I really like the Story that Selebus is putting out and for that I became a Subscriber and tried to subtlety help him get more by giving what people here asked for in Previews and Update event breakdowns. But because of the treatment from the Ban, no more. The day I learned I was Banned, his subscriber earnings per month fell from just over 11k to just somewhere in the 9k range, hope he learned something from that/those day(s). Ironically Someone on Disc asked him if that sudden loss of revenue was to be viewed as a threat! He did not respond, which was probably for the best.

 

[Wardtnaci]

Spoiler: 0.38 Event Titles

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

If someone else posted these before, Sorry to all I didn't notice.

 

[crustlord12]

To stoke the flames of LIL discussion what's everybody's favorite theme? I personally like the Tsukoika manor theme the most.

Honestly, I love the opening theme when you boot up the game. It could be because of how many times I've heard it but I always get this feeling of excitement and anticipation when I hear it

 

[shumaki]

help I started playing again and what is this!?

can someone give me the answers?

 

[Noob Gamer 24 2402]

Dude. There is a Puzzle Guide

View attachment 3362491

help I started playing again and what is this!?

can someone give me the answers?

Link to the guide is in the first page. Just use it, no need to torture yourself

 

[Xiondingens]

Dude. There is a Puzzle Guide

Link to the guide is in the first page. Just use it, no need to torture yourself

Who needs a guide when all the answers are in the code?

 

[Dc345]

View attachment 3362491

help I started playing again and what is this!?

can someone give me the answers?

This is probably the easiest reset puzzle aside from the follow the light/sunshine question. But if you cant figure it out you can use the URM to find the answers or use the guide which is in the op.

 

[Duskreyn]

something very recent from the discord, Selebus about wizard, and interesting to bring here

Spoiler: Wizards

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[Bingoogus]

something very recent from the discord, Selebus about wizard, and interesting to bring here

Spoiler: Wizards

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

I agree with him fully... buuuut sidestepping the immorality of wanting to fuck either the teens or the wizards, there's a deeply ingrained evolutionary reason for men to be attracted to 15-ish year old girls whether people want to admit it or not, or accept it or not, but there is no genetic programming that says 'fuck the kids too bro'. They're both immoral and fucked up in reality and should be punished in exactly equal measure, we're better than out animal roots, as a society we've pretty universally said if you're an adult then keep your hands off the under 16's, 18's even, and for good bloody reason, but i would expect most people to have a more disgusted instinctual reaction to hearing a 31 year old dude fucked a child than they would hearing he fucked a 15 year old. There'd be a strong sense of disgust for both, but most people can feel the difference, one is worse than the other, one is more of a violation of the social contract we all live by, one is mega creepy and the other is 'string him up by his testicles'.