Ren'Py Completed Long Live the Princess [v1.0.1] [Belle]

[John The Boogeyman Wick]

@Belle
I really like your game so far, very interesting start. The dialogue quite funny and good. I love Belle and Evelyn! A few things I would suggest that I think would improve the experience.

The first is taking away dialogue option that you can never do. It makes us think "whats the point of having a option if you can't use it?" Like an illusion of free choice. An Example "what is the difference between me and my sister, I have a dick, but i'm not brave enough to say it" But I suggest leaving that one in as a joke!

The second is having a skip and back button. Yeah I know it kind might make some people miss some of your well written dialogue but it helpful when you want to load back too discover the impact of your decision. I can't tell you how tiring it can get, to rapidly clicking on the mouse to get to the correct point and then miss the point have to start over again.
But good job so far!

 

[polluxz]

Very promising game,good dialog and nice art design. I hope your next update will be like this in quality

 

[Belle]

The first is taking away dialogue option that you can never do. It makes us think "whats the point of having a option if you can't use it?" Like an illusion of free choice. An Example "what is the difference between me and my sister, I have a dick, but i'm not brave enough to say it" But I suggest leaving that one in as a joke!

I would usually do that, except that in this game choosing such options can have consequences later, and also serve to inform the player about why he can't choose that option right now. I might do a mix of these options later on, but for now, the most important thing was to create a tutorial that lets the player understand the underlying game mechanics, even if I don't expose the nitty-gritty details.

The second is having a skip and back button. Yeah I know it kind might make some people miss some of your well written dialogue but it helpful when you want to load back too discover the impact of your decision. I can't tell you how tiring it can get, to rapidly clicking on the mouse to get to the correct point and then miss the point have to start over again.
But good job so far!

I deliberately turned off the back button since I want decisions to carry weight in this game, but there is a skip button. You're not the only one to request it, which goes to show that I'm getting too used to visual novels and their idiosyncrasies. Just hit Ctrl at any point to start skipping. As long as you're holding it down, the game will skip past any text you've seen before. You should be able to customize this behavior further in the settings.

I will include a tutorial message about this in the next version.

 

[zazzaro]

Looks pretty good.

Is there anything outside of the 2 Evelyn scenes?

 

[Belle]

Looks pretty good.

Is there anything outside of the 2 Evelyn scenes?

There are currently 4 "scenes" available after the tutorial ends. They are (spoilers, obviously):

Spoiler

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With the tutorial out of the way, I expect the number of scenes to ramp up pretty dramatically over the next few releases. The only scenes that are a significant time drain to design and write right now are the spellcasting scenes because I have to design a puzzle with lots of branches.

 

[docclox]

I deliberately turned off the back button since I want decisions to carry weight in this game, but there is a skip button.

You can, I believe, set the scrollback so it will scroll back to immediately after the last decision point. That means if I accidentally double-click and miss something important, I can still read what it was, but I can't go past that point to change the decision. That would probably satisfy all concerns.

 

[Belle]

You can, I believe, set the scrollback so it will scroll back to immediately after the last decision point. That means if I accidentally double-click and miss something important, I can still read what it was, but I can't go past that point to change the decision. That would probably satisfy all concerns.

I did not know that. That's useful information. It would be kind of superfluous since you can already read previous lines through the History option in the menu, but more options can be a good thing as long as they don't get in the way.

 

[Belle]

I've looked into the rollback issue further, and it seems like I'll have to do this manually at every decision point, and it won't by default play nice with all parts of my system. I'm leaning towards allowing rollback, but blocking it after selections in the clue window (and later, the inventory window), and fixing decisions made in all other cases. If done correctly, this means that you can rollback past a decision, but when you reach it again, you can only make the same choice you made the first time. That sounds like a decent compromise to me.

 

[Maragdus]

@Belle

The game looks pretty good and with a lot of future potential.

And a tip if you want to avoid a huge amount of hate and disapproval don't make the sister into the towns Bj queen or a anal whore it's best if you make her a total virgin in regards to men ore at least her secrets not being about discovering any of her previous sex relationships.

 

[John The Boogeyman Wick]

I would usually do that, except that in this game choosing such options can have consequences later, and also serve to inform the player about why he can't choose that option right now. I might do a mix of these options later on, but for now, the most important thing was to create a tutorial that lets the player understand the underlying game mechanics, even if I don't expose the nitty-gritty details.



I deliberately turned off the back button since I want decisions to carry weight in this game, but there is a skip button. You're not the only one to request it, which goes to show that I'm getting too used to visual novels and their idiosyncrasies. Just hit Ctrl at any point to start skipping. As long as you're holding it down, the game will skip past any text you've seen before. You should be able to customize this behavior further in the settings.

I will include a tutorial message about this in the next version.

Thank for the reply!
For the first suggestion. I had a feeling that was your plan. But don't do it to much outside the tutorial it will get annoying real fast.

Second. I have played a lot of visual novels and I did't even know that Crtl skipped. Learn stuff every day, I guess.

Oh yeah, one question. Is their a clue i'm supposed to use for the first time you "invade mind" Evelyn? I already know about her chest, next to her bed. But I think you can only find after you "invade mind" the first time. Tried all The dialogue option with the known clues and none work or am I missing something?

 

[Gravekeeper13]

Can we cheat the stats?

 

[Belle]

@Belle

The game looks pretty good and with a lot of future potential.

And a tip if you want to avoid a huge amount of hate and disapproval don't make the sister into the towns Bj queen or a anal whore it's best if you make her a total virgin in regards to men ore at least her secrets not being about discovering any of her previous sex relationships.

I will make her 3-dimensional, and her behavior and history will be somewhat influenced by player choices. The last thing I want to do is make things too predictable or cookie-cutter. I understand where you're coming from with what you write here, you are most likely correct, and I do keep those things in mind while I'm writing, but my first priority is to tell a fresh, somewhat unique story, not to cross off a bunch of checkboxes to match player expectations from other games. No offense intended, just to be clear. I tend to break away from expectations a lot of the time since I think cliché

Thank for the reply!
For the first suggestion. I had a feeling that was your plan. But don't do it to much outside the tutorial it will get annoying real fast.

Second. I have played a lot of visual novels and I did't even know that Crtl skipped. Learn stuff every day, I guess.

Oh yeah, one question. Is their a clue i'm supposed to use for the first time you "invade mind" Evelyn? I already know about her chest, next to her bed. But I think you can only find after you "invade mind" the first time. Tried all The dialogue option with the known clues and none work or am I missing something?

You can find the clue before you use the spell on her, but if the first thing you do after you are given free reign is to march directly to Evelyn and cast the spell, then no, you won't have that clue. Search first and cast the spell afterward. There's no need to cast it until you are prepared.

Can we cheat the stats?

The stats don't really do anything right now, so cheating them wouldn't make any difference. I will consider adding some kind of "cheat mode" in the future, but I want to make it clear that this isn't a game where you need to grind stats or money. Most situations where you spend an action to do something, say work or a social interaction, will be a new and unique scene. There should be little to no filler. I include stats in this game to maintain some control over the story progression, not to waste the player's time.

 

[dbp5ca]

Yeah, that's my instinctive approach to development. Map everything out and follow a plan. I don't think that's a good way to do things with this project though. I'm doing crowdfunding now, and I do honestly want my patrons to have some influence over the direction I take things. If I set my plans in stone at this stage, it becomes harder for me to listen to the suggestions I receive.

I've yet to play this though the good comments you are generating are definitely influencing me (so many games so little time ) WRT your comment about developing things you might want to build some decision points around polls with your patrons, that way you can have better control so that timelines, etc in the story don't get away from you while allowing them to have some form of meaningful influence.

 

[Belle]

I've yet to play this though the god comments you are generating are definitely influencing me (so many games so little time ) WRT you comment about developing things you might want to build some decision points around polls with your patrons, that way you can have better control so that timelines, etc in the story don't get away from you while allowing them to have some form of meaningful influence.

Definitely. The first few polls will most likely focus on stuff like "which girl should I focus on first," but as we get into the more nebulous middle of the development, I'll leave things a little more open. I have a clear beginning and an end in mind for this story, as well as some important plot moments in the middle, but the details elsewhere are flexible enough that I can allow patrons to come up with ideas that generally won't hurt development. I will steer the polls to a certain degree because to do otherwise would be madness, but I also don't intend to give patrons the illusion of control. I honestly want the crowdfunding aspect of this project to apply to more than just money.

 

[Bueno]

How much content (play time) are we currently talking? I try to wait a bit to make it sweeter.

 

[Belle]

How much content (play time) are we currently talking? I try to wait a bit to make it sweeter.

I don't really know since I'm the developer. My pace through this thing would be quite different from other people. It's not long right now though, so if that is a requirement for you, you might benefit from waiting for a few more versions. Those of you who've played this, how long did it take you?

 

[illmatic]

Just finished, it took around 10 minutes or so. I like the direction, it feels fresh. My only complaint is the models aren't particularly gorgeous but maybe you're going for a realism feudal vibe (then again it is a sex game).

Except the pixie. She's hot and I hope we get to explore the impractical new taboo of pixie sex

 

[Belle]

Just finished, it took around 10 minutes or so. I like the direction, it feels fresh. My only complaint is the models aren't particularly gorgeous but maybe you're going for a realism feudal vibe (then again it is a sex game).

Except the pixie. She's hot and I hope we get to explore the impractical new taboo of pixie sex

10 minutes? That sounds like a bit of an exaggeration. The current version of the game contains roughly 25% the number of words of the entire first Harry Potter novel. It takes even me a long time to read through what I've written so far.

And yes, I will explore that particular "taboo", don't worry.

 

[illmatic]

That's fair, I'm a fast reader but it may well have been longer. I was impressed that as the days kept rolling over I hadn't been hit with a "that's all folks" endscreen yet, so props for that.

 

[elmandor]

How much content (play time) are we currently talking? I try to wait a bit to make it sweeter.

Its absolutely takes more than 10 minutes I can tell. And its really good written. I couldn't skip any dialog. If you just looking for sexual content I suggest wait for a bit.