VN Ren'Py Lost Solace [Ch.2 P1 v0.2a] [SakuraKage]

[Quetzzz]

Olivia (girl with glasses) I'm pretty sure is the brunette we freed from the container

Yeah, that would work. I really thought it was Dora at first with how suspicious she acted. If it's the same girl, then I wonder how she was able to find him in the span of two days. If he's that easy to track down, why hasn't anyone done it in the past 6 years and murdered the MC in his sleep?

 

[Quetzzz]

Olivia (girl with glasses) I'm pretty sure is the brunette we freed from the container

I'm now convinced you're right:




I remain fascinated by Dora.

Spoiler: Musings

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[Rammstein1]

I don't think she actually tracked him down.
1. The MC was masked when going after the traffickers

2. The only interaction between the captive girls and the MC was him opening the container (I think?)

3. Gemma (our FBI contact/fuck buddy) wants to keep MC's involvement on the down low, I wouldn't put it past her that she took the girls' statements and then told them to leave town, and start fresh. That's one way to make it difficult to bring them in for further questioning.

So for now, I'm seeing her appearance in Lost Solace as a coincidence but will probably keep her at arms length until we find out more.

 

[Quetzzz]

So for now, I'm seeing her appearance in Lost Solace as a coincidence but will probably keep her at arms length until we find out more.

Maybe. I find this kind of coincidence extremely difficult to believe. She just walked past the teahouse and approached the MC without recognizing him while he's in an entirely different city from where she was saved and hospitalized?

Gemma is a weird case, and we don't really know if she's always been this forward with the MC or if this is a recent development. It wouldn't surprise me if she had a hand in them meeting each other. She's the one urging him to make new friends and to stay grounded. If this were a harem AVN, she'd be the bottom bitch.

 

[SakuraKage]

1. The MC was masked when going after the traffickers

its only barely visible in this render, and only for a second, but he actually wasnt. hood only
im not trying to be pedantic. i love to read people's theories, and i dont want you to theorize off of false assumptions.

 

[Rammstein1]

View attachment 5405006

its only barely visible in this render, and only for a second, but he actually wasnt. hood only
im not trying to be pedantic. i love to read people's theories, and i dont want you to theorize off of false assumptions.

Alright, my bad, I guess I assumed he'd be masked, but I suppose if you're not planning to leave anyone alive to give a description then a mask isn't such a necessity. Also having a friend in the Federal Bureau of Investigation definitely goes a long way in concealing your identity from law enforcement.

Love the game by the way, eagerly awaiting more. Mio's best girl anyone who claims otherwise is simply wrong.

 

[SakuraKage]

Mio's best girl anyone who claims otherwise is simply wrong.

i lowkey agree, but dont tell anyone
posted this on reddit the other day in case you missed it

 

[Johnhart93]

interesting plot

 

[MiltonPowers]

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First exclusive teaser of Calliope

 

[SakuraKage]

I decided that dev updates will have a two week paywall from now on, after that they'll become publicly available.
So free members wont be completely blind to the development, but my supporters will still always be up to date to the most recent development stage and get first eyes on new images.

So you can check out my patreon right now and have a look at all past dev logs for free(except the new one and #6 because of nsfw images)

You must be registered to see the links

 

[Monetka_]

Dev Update #13

Hey you legends,

time for another update.

There's not much to report really. We are at almost 1200 finished renders.
I worked a lot on Calliope's scene and I think the renders turned out beautifully.
You can finally get a good look at her in the above render.
Let me know what you think about her.

This week I will start working on the action/combat scenes.
I think from an image standpoint I'm well on schedule, but the animations are going to be unpredictable. I decided to do them last so I can completely focus on those.
And while those are rendering I can look for music and sfx.
Depending on the timeline I might decide to provide my gametesters and proofreaders a version without some animations, so I can use that time to work on them a bit longer without delaying the release.

I also did some coding already and implemented around 800 renders with dialogue into renpy.

Overall I'm not really happy with the development speed. I pretty much officially started working on the update 3 months ago. That means that I managed to do 400 renders per month, which is around 13 renders per day.
I think those numbers could definitely be higher. Speed fluctuates a lot depending on the complexity of the scene. My attention to detail might be holding me back, but I also believe that its one of the things that will make my game stand out.
Maybe I'm just dumb for comparing myself to devs who have been doing this for much longer than me.

Unrelated, I decided that dev updates will have a two week paywall from now on, after that they'll become publicly available.
So free members wont be completely blind to the development, but my supporters will still always be up to date to the most recent development stage and get first eyes on images like the one above.

There will be one more sneak peek this month. And that's probably going to be the last one before the release.

 

[Quetzzz]

Maybe I'm just dumb for comparing myself to devs who have been doing this for much longer than me.

You're not dumb. This is how you get on their level. And, honestly, your renders are already better than 95% of the games I've played.

 

[Zarathos27]

Output surpasses most out there already, so don't be too hard on yourself. Will be rooting for you.

 

[anker11]

Man I haven't been this hooked and excited for a new game since Sort of Justice and Moonlight. I echo all the previous effusive praise but I will add that I typically play games on mute and listen to my own music, but decided play this with audio on, and that couldn't have been a better decision. So great track selection as well!

 

[LaShou23]

Mio means 'mine' in Spanish, so, sorry guys, but I’m claiming her!

Spoiler

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All jokes aside, I’m enjoying the story so far SakuraKage I really like the character designs. They look unique, different from those same models we've seen countless times, and the eye movements are a really nice touch.

 

[Merlin-Magic]

A friend let me know about this game. He is never wrong when he says a game is good, but usually that is all I get. No other info.
I have gotten much more picky over the years since my first AVN. This game impressed me far more than I ever expected.
I would say, that I like everything about it, from the unique characters to the mini games (I thought I would never say that last one).
Even the music is good and not the same old tune you have heard one hundred times before.
This story has me hooked like no other, in a very long time. If I could give this game six stars, I would.
There, I did ★★★★★★
There is no doubt that this has been a whole lot of work to create and it has all been done incredibly well.
It is going to be very tough to play another game after this one.

 

[Monetka_]

Dev Update #14

Hey you legends,

the end is in sight.
All still images are done and I started working on the remaining animations.

This update will have almost 1400 images and at least 14 unique animations in total, of which only 3 are completed so far.
Including different angles and speeds, the total animation count will be 20+.
That's a much higher animation ratio than Chapter 1, which had 2k images with only 8 animations.

I think that I'll be able to narrow down a precise release window for the next dev log.
I believe that the first release for 'Wanderer' will be around mid December with a 'Roamer' release some time after Christmas and a public release after new years.
But of course that's just an estimate right now.

I scripted the whole update into renpy already and started playing the update for myself for the first time yesterday.

First thing I noticed, some of the save files behaved weirdly and one even broke completely.
I suspect that's because I reorganized some of the script files.
For the first release I just crammed everything into one "script" file, but I realized that's going to be increasingly unfeasible with each update, so I divided the chapters and all variables into their own script files.
So you might have to replay some parts of the game.
Sorry for the inconvenience, but better to get it out of the way now, than five updates in.

Playing it was definitely fun, although it felt a bit shorter than expected.
I haven't timed a playthrough yet, because I did some polishing during play.
I'm very satisfied with the flow and pacing, the visuals, and the direction.
Characters get a good amount of time to develop and I think you're gonna like it.
Even though the cast is kinda limited for this update, it never felt monotonous or boring.

And speaking of the cast, I've been thinking about this for a while... I might have to scale back on the solo paths.
Initially I planned a solo path for almost every main LI but there are just too many.

Before I continue, I just wanna make sure you understand what I mean by "solo path":
A solo path is a comprehensive branch with exclusive and unique scenes tailored to the LI and relationship, like dates, meeting friends, maybe daytrips, and stuff like that.
It doesn't mean LIs without a solo path wont be romanceable and become side girls for quick flings. It just determines the scope of it.
All main girls will stay romanceable and have their own scenes(yes, including Raven).

Mio, Olivia, Tessa, Gemma, Ash & Hanna will get their own branch for sure.
So no worries there at all.
Which means the girls I'm unsure about as of this moment are Sylvie, Eudora, Lena, Calliope.
Sylvie and (especially)Dora have not been as popular as the others.

Of course its still too early to tell, since you haven't even met Calli and Lena yet and characterization on the others is limited, so it will take some time to decide this. Probably another 3-4 updates to get a feel.
There will be no vote or poll for this. I will decide based on my own perception and judgment.

 

[anker11]

There will be no vote or poll for this. I will decide based on my own perception and judgment.

Good. Even though it's not entirely fleshed out yet, the story is already so strong that your (Sakura's) judgement is best, rather than it devolving entirely into polls. And while player feedback is relevant, I'd much rather have it implicitly guide these decisions instead of it exclusively determining the outline of the story

 

[MagicMan753]

And speaking of the cast, I've been thinking about this for a while... I might have to scale back on the solo paths.
Initially I planned a solo path for almost every main LI but there are just too many.

Before I continue, I just wanna make sure you understand what I mean by "solo path":
A solo path is a comprehensive branch with exclusive and unique scenes tailored to the LI and relationship, like dates, meeting friends, maybe daytrips, and stuff like that.
It doesn't mean LIs without a solo path wont be romanceable and become side girls for quick flings. It just determines the scope of it.
All main girls will stay romanceable and have their own scenes(yes, including Raven).

Mio, Olivia, Tessa, Gemma, Ash & Hanna will get their own branch for sure.
So no worries there at all.
Which means the girls I'm unsure about as of this moment are Sylvie, Eudora, Lena, Calliope.
Sylvie and (especially)Dora have not been as popular as the others.

Of course its still too early to tell, since you haven't even met Calli and Lena yet and characterization on the others is limited, so it will take some time to decide this. Probably another 3-4 updates to get a feel.
There will be no vote or poll for this. I will decide based on my own perception and judgment.

I will say it would suck to scale back paths, cause I like a lot fo girls and I want those dates, daytrips, quality time, etc. But I do see how it is a problem.

There is one solution, but many people may not be a fan of. There are two throuple paths(one with lesbian action, one without). If we just force those paths as all or nothing, that would limit branching. 4 girls, with probably 6 branches cause of solos for each girl plus throuple variations, become just 2 branches. It would piss off some solo players, but other games do this like BaD. Just something to think about, could make branching a bit easier.

But yeah, hope dev figures something out. Don't want to limit Sylvie, I like her a lot. Also, I am Glad to see he mentioned Raven, she is arguably fighting for top spot, so I definitely want a full romantic date with her at some point.

So just some thoughts, and suggestions on what to do.

 

[AlexMpog]

View attachment 5505835

Dev Update #14

Hey you legends,

the end is in sight.
All still images are done and I started working on the remaining animations.

This update will have almost 1400 images and at least 14 unique animations in total, of which only 3 are completed so far.
Including different angles and speeds, the total animation count will be 20+.
That's a much higher animation ratio than Chapter 1, which had 2k images with only 8 animations.

I think that I'll be able to narrow down a precise release window for the next dev log.
I believe that the first release for 'Wanderer' will be around mid December with a 'Roamer' release some time after Christmas and a public release after new years.
But of course that's just an estimate right now.

I scripted the whole update into renpy already and started playing the update for myself for the first time yesterday.

First thing I noticed, some of the save files behaved weirdly and one even broke completely.
I suspect that's because I reorganized some of the script files.
For the first release I just crammed everything into one "script" file, but I realized that's going to be increasingly unfeasible with each update, so I divided the chapters and all variables into their own script files.
So you might have to replay some parts of the game.
Sorry for the inconvenience, but better to get it out of the way now, than five updates in.

Playing it was definitely fun, although it felt a bit shorter than expected.
I haven't timed a playthrough yet, because I did some polishing during play.
I'm very satisfied with the flow and pacing, the visuals, and the direction.
Characters get a good amount of time to develop and I think you're gonna like it.
Even though the cast is kinda limited for this update, it never felt monotonous or boring.

And speaking of the cast, I've been thinking about this for a while... I might have to scale back on the solo paths.
Initially I planned a solo path for almost every main LI but there are just too many.

Before I continue, I just wanna make sure you understand what I mean by "solo path":
A solo path is a comprehensive branch with exclusive and unique scenes tailored to the LI and relationship, like dates, meeting friends, maybe daytrips, and stuff like that.
It doesn't mean LIs without a solo path wont be romanceable and become side girls for quick flings. It just determines the scope of it.
All main girls will stay romanceable and have their own scenes(yes, including Raven).

Mio, Olivia, Tessa, Gemma, Ash & Hanna will get their own branch for sure.
So no worries there at all.
Which means the girls I'm unsure about as of this moment are Sylvie, Eudora, Lena, Calliope.
Sylvie and (especially)Dora have not been as popular as the others.

Of course its still too early to tell, since you haven't even met Calli and Lena yet and characterization on the others is limited, so it will take some time to decide this. Probably another 3-4 updates to get a feel.
There will be no vote or poll for this. I will decide based on my own perception and judgment.

I didn’t really pay attention yesterday, but I reread it now and realised - Raven finally got promoted to a LI!?
It’s getting too hot in here.