VN Ren'Py Love and Evil Things [v0.1.4] [Petals]

4.50 star(s) 6 Votes

LaETDev

Newbie
Game Developer
Dec 23, 2017
47
187
The demo for this came out 9 months ago... is there seriously still no update?
Damn, time flies when you're developing a porn game.

Jokes aside I post progress updates on Patreon every couple weeks or so. The reality is I dropped the demo too early and it didn't garner much positive attention. So I've taken it slow to plan out the entire story, build the required maps, fix the models, write future scripts, get a musician, and update the code so saves hopefully never get bricked after updates, boring stuff like that.

But could be a blessing in disguise, if it was making any money I would've felt the need to rush further low-quality content out.

Apologies for the delays. Hopefully it's worth it.
 

solama7304

Newbie
Apr 27, 2023
18
15
The reality is I dropped the demo too early and it didn't garner much positive attention.
Lots of indie games strive for attention so if you want to keep up the hype you got to put out game updates on the regular or else the game will get buried. Development updates are okay however at some point people will want to see all that work pay off by playing the game. Just be weary of the perfectionist trap thinking it's never good enough to push out as people can nitpick the little things but there isn't much to say about the abstract besides keep working hard.

Low-quality content like more sex scenes will keep the fans happy. That's how some developers release updates on the weekly and many will cheer for that. Adorable things like feeding the girl, letting her take care of the player, hand holding, head pats, cuddles, playing with their feet, and such will make a fan want to shank a bitch if anything happens to her. Letting fans choose their best girl will spark competition. Many developers have milked a few polls pitting the girls against one another and seeing the consequences of one's actions is always fun to watch in game.

Best of luck to you but the more months without updates the more your game is going to sink into the latest updates and be surrounded by the abandoned 0.0.1 release demos and completed projects of other developers.
 

hoshimota

Active Member
Sep 18, 2023
599
1,366
Yeah honestly I suspect what's going on here is you thought you would drop a demo and instantly get hundreds of Patreon subs, that's just not how it works.

I disagree almost completely about the demo, I thought it was great. It was fucking hilarious. You just needed to keep going. If you look at some of the very successful adult games on Patreon, they were far from perfect when they started to pick up critical mass and make $$$. Corrupted Kingdoms was in very rough shape yet that got many subs, the difference is they had hours of gameplay not 10 minutes. You've spent countless hours on Patreon posts for a whopping... ~20 subscribers.

People care much more about seeing that you will regularly push out decent content, than about polish and perfection, at this stage.

You need *hours* of gameplay for people to get hooked. No one is going to invest in you before you invest in yourself at least enough to get to 3-5 hours of gameplay. There are way too many devs out there who just burn out or view this as too much of a 3rd priority side hobby and their games rarely go beyond an hour or two of content. A lot of people have been burned by devs that will not put out content quickly enough (and you are kind of showing high risk of falling in that category right now fyi) - try dropping a decent update every few months for a year and see what happens.
 

LaETDev

Newbie
Game Developer
Dec 23, 2017
47
187
Yeah, like I said. I made a mistake releasing the demo too early. I am not happy with myself for how it released and I do apologize for that. Here's some major issues I had:
  • Still hadn't decided on the main gameplay loop, and none of the programming had been done for it
  • I had no consistent workflow, for the demo I was animating the scenes while writing them
  • Models were broken/inconsistent
  • I was still worthless at manipulating CharaStudio
  • I lost a shitload of work with one of my drives that bricked in early January (I almost quit after this)
I've fixed all of this now. Everything is backed up on the cloud. There's a story map for me to follow for major plot points for each girl. It takes me roughly half-an-hour to write a new scene compared to hours/days before when I didn't "know" the personalities. I've programmed a pretty robust architecture for the game (knock on wood). And the models look great now. Don't worry, the humor is even better. The humor was really the only part of the demo I thought was solid, that and Kamiko's bottle spin animation. That shit was dope.

I am very pleased with the content in the new patch. I believe I have used this time well and because of that it will quicken the releases going forward. One thing about the patch though, there's not very much repeated use of images. A scene has 100 lines and 80 images. That will not be the norm going forward as it takes too long to make. I'm already over 2500 images for this update and I want to cut that in half.

After this update drops I will take a short break to get feedback and play ToTK finally, then I'll be releasing bi-monthly updates with roughly 45 scenes in each, and way more sex scenes as the relationships build. And that will get even quicker as I kill off the girls one by one in each patch, starting with Mei.

My priorities after this patch:
  • ToTK for a couple weeks
  • Add a Replay system (do people actually care about this? I have no idea)
  • Content content content content content
 

LaETDev

Newbie
Game Developer
Dec 23, 2017
47
187
Alrighty, 0.1.1 is here. If you get a crash or a bug with the main loop please send me a DM so I can take a look at your crash log, I'll need your save file probably as well. I'm sure there's a few bugs I missed.

If for some reason you have an old save sitting around you cannot use it for this patch...

Otherwise let me know what ya think.

I am very sleepy so I'll add some more mirrors tomorrow and see about promoting the thread... I do not remember how to do that at all.
 
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hoshimota

Active Member
Sep 18, 2023
599
1,366
All right so here is my reaction to the new update.

First of all, the quality is fucking amazing, so good work on that. The dialogue and humor remained as excellent as the initial teaser demo. Really hope this is maintained as content is added.

Second the shit you get Koikatsu to do, is just straight up amazing, you make other Koikatsu games I have played before look like a fucking joke.

Third, this was a good amount of content for a release, I am glad it wasn't some 10-minute bullshit update like so many devs are doing nowadays.

Really my only significant complaint/concern here is, I hope to hell that you can push releases out at a more reasonable cadence, the time between the first demo and this release was too long.

I did notice two minor issues, once I hit day 8, the time got messed up, it would just stay stuck on day 8 and go through morning, day, night, etc. over and over and the only way to get past this was to start using the skip arrow button thing at the top right to get to the next event. Similarly, I had a lot of events early on then suddenly they were crazy spaced out (like skipping from one event to the next would make several days go by, to the point where I think it hit day 26 or so for me to get to the end) - I think this aspect needs some tweaking eventually. But this is minor bullshit don't sweat this too much.

If you can maintain this kind of quality, and get your release times under control (like push this size update out in a few months rather than over a year) I would seriously consider supporting the project. And that is coming from someone who shits really hard on Patreon alllll the time - like my dude, if you actually convert me to supporting a project on fucking Patreon or Subscribestar, F95 should really invent a new badge for you just for that feat.

In short, GREAT JOB, I am adding this one to my sig and I will be posting about it in relevant threads, I wish you much success and will be watching this one with much interest. This has the potential to be one of the best adult VNs I have ever played.
 

LaETDev

Newbie
Game Developer
Dec 23, 2017
47
187
I did notice two minor issues, once I hit day 8, the time got messed up, it would just stay stuck on day 8 and go through morning, day, night, etc. over and over and the only way to get past this was to start using the skip arrow button thing at the top right to get to the next event. Similarly, I had a lot of events early on then suddenly they were crazy spaced out (like skipping from one event to the next would make several days go by, to the point where I think it hit day 26 or so for me to get to the end) - I think this aspect needs some tweaking eventually. But this is minor bullshit don't sweat this too much.
You wouldn't happen to have a save for that broken loop would you? Or can you recreate it?

So the way it works is that some of the acts are reliant on other acts to move forward. So for example, Mei's 3rd act is based on Suki's 2nd. So if you don't like Suki... you won't see Mei's act pop-up until you finish it anyways. I think that's fine... But maybe what I need is a hint system that shows Mei's head with a Suki icon floating over top of it to indicate you have to go see Suki to continue? That's not a bad idea now that I think about it...

The next problem you faced was the time difference between the acts. At the start everyone's acts are set to "weekday" so you can view them whenever. Then I purposely spaced them out a bit more. I wanted people to check out every girl and then kind of "find" the girls throughout the week. This was originally because I was going to have longer episodes with like 15-20 acts per girl... but since each episode is much shorter, I probably need a different solution.

One thing I'll toy with is instead of setting a specific act to "Thursday," which means if you miss it you'll have to wait an entire week. I'll just set a decay on the girl when you view her act and then you just have to wait 3-4 days to view the next one instead, that way there's always a steady supply of Acts flowing in. I know some people see "decay" and assume the worst, but I think there's something to be said about weaving the different girls personalities in and out to get a good feel for the world.

Thank you for your positive feedback regarding the quality. Did the Karaoke scene run correctly for you? Was it enjoyable?

If you can maintain this kind of quality, and get your release times under control
I really hope everyone can see now that this isn't just a generic update, this is the real Love and Evil Things I want people to experience. The original demo was me just dipping my toes into Koikatsu and writing some funny scripts with a general idea of where the story is going. I literally couldn't even remember the character's names at the time. I now know where the story's going, I know the personalities, and I know how to manipulate CharaStudio a bit better.

As for the timeline on releases, I of course realize this took way too long, and have worked to remedy that issue. Hopefully I can convince everyone that's true with the next update.

In short, GREAT JOB, I am adding this one to my sig and I will be posting about it in relevant threads, I wish you much success and will be watching this one with much interest. This has the potential to be one of the best adult VNs I have ever played.
:cool:
 
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hoshimota

Active Member
Sep 18, 2023
599
1,366
Did the Karaoke scene run correctly for you? Was it enjoyable?
Yes it ran perfectly and was very well done.

You wouldn't happen to have a save for that broken loop would you? Or can you recreate it?
Oh man... you mean you want me to play through what is arguably the best VN posted on this site in ages AGAIN, so I can actually take some useful saves this time? ... Challenge Accepted
 

ArhraCole

Member
Apr 24, 2020
280
309
Okay serious question, how much time did you spend picking the sound tracks for each scene? I'm only just getting to Momo after school after the demo shower scene so far and have to say I've been enjoying the various tracks picked for each scene quite a bit. Also very much enjoying the humor in this so far. Mei's a treat. (y)
 

LaETDev

Newbie
Game Developer
Dec 23, 2017
47
187
Okay serious question, how much time did you spend picking the sound tracks for each scene? I'm only just getting to Momo after school after the demo shower scene so far and have to say I've been enjoying the various tracks picked for each scene quite a bit. Also very much enjoying the humor in this so far. Mei's a treat. (y)
Took me a few days to pick out tunes that were free. It gets easier the more you add. I also bought a couple VN music packs.

Still hoping to replace almost all of the music with custom tracks but my musician is going through a busy patch at the moment... They'll be patched in as he completes 'em.
 

ArhraCole

Member
Apr 24, 2020
280
309
That sounds like we'll need to be going back to the beginning from time to time to get the experience with the newly updated tracks. Hope you make note of those changes in patch notes and such when they come. :cool:
 

yilkin

dl.rpdl.net
Donor
Feb 23, 2023
9,182
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LoveAndEvilThings-0.1.3
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Juerhullycin

Member
Feb 4, 2024
303
718
LaETDev I Really like the new version.

The skip direct to the next event Button is a serious Genius level move. Even a sandbox hater like me can play the game relative hassle free. That button should be fucking mandatory for every sandbox game. Serious props for that.

I'm not finished with all the content because that was a chunky update that has more content then some other games deliver in 3-5 updates.

so the following is my notes to the first ~40-60% of the update

For my personal taste the mood in the game is a bit to swingy between over the top fireball attacks and grief related issues.

I found some inconsistencies in the scene order the talk wit Mia about her job prospects with heavy ordnance played directly after the scene with miss Mori in the teacher lounge about calling her pupil a bitch.
In the second scene you meet the Science teacher and MC remarks that he can see why she is Mias favourite teacher and seconds later he doesnt know about who Mia is talking about.

and probably most important you fucked up some wich fucks with mod support and can bite you massive in the ass down the line.
 
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LaETDev

Newbie
Game Developer
Dec 23, 2017
47
187
you meet the Science teacher and MC remarks that he can see why she is Mias favourite teacher and seconds later he doesnt know about who Mia is talking about.

and probably most important you fucked up some wich fucks with mod support and can bite you massive in the ass down the line.
I'll DM you about the reserved variables I've fucked up so we can solve that.

And yeah there's a couple if statements I missed. I'll add that one into Mei's second act.
 
4.50 star(s) 6 Votes