VN Ren'Py Love Strikes Thrice [E.1] [Renofrome]

[renofrome]

That's fair, I know I have a tendency to write a lot so no worries if you only skimmed it. Thanks for the info, still not for me though. Being able to have sexy time with the girls before being forced to pick isn't much better for me. I know some are fine with it, and that's cool. But it actually makes having to leave girls behind even harder for me, personally. But again, thanks for the info either way.

Your previous message was too long to quote, so I guess I'll use this one. Thank you for taking the time to write your comments, a lot of it is pretty valid. And yes, the only real gripe I have is getting prejudged when this all seems to be a misunderstanding. I still think it's bad that people assume the worst of a dev whom they don't know yet, whose work they haven't even tried yet. It's like a false accusation wherein new evidence might shed light to the truth, but you're still left with your reputation in tatters. I mean, we don't even have a proper comment about the content of the game on this thread yet, as some of these kind users have made it sure that anyone passing by gets scared out of it.

I understand that I might have overlooked the knowledge gap between the dev and a player. A dev knows the whole picture because they're the one making it, but the player is left in the dark and connect the dots themselves with little information they have (worse, with misinformation from others adding to it). I won't split the game into three projects, as I still maintain that it's one game split into three parts. They're meant to be connected in a way that Eric's story leads to Kurt's story, then to Derek's story. The other LIs featured in Eric's story aren't meant to be LIs at this point. (Though we know that they are LIs). They're merely background characters, and yes you do get to know them, but not in an intimate way the same way the actual MC assigned to them would get to know them. When we get to Kurt's story, and while we've already been introduced with his LIs through Eric's eyes, we see another side of the LIs that only Kurt sees, and no, we're not picking up from Eric's story. It's not Eric Part 2, it is Kurt's story. We start all over again with Kurt at the center of it. (Though chronologically it is after Eric's story). The 3 LIs of Derek aren't featured because of story reasons. Though players would have met them early on in the story anyway, so it's not meant to be a huge secret. Can't a dev at least have a little bit of mystery in his game where people can speculate?

By the way, there will be no back and forth between the MCs. That's very confusing in plain sight. One after the other only.

I failed to mention that Eric and the LIs you've come to love don't just disappear either. They're still ever-present in Kurt's story. Now I understand people would find this scenario as NTR now, because since you're Kurt, you are seeing Eric with an LI you liked previously. No, you are Eric, you are Kurt, and you are Derek as well. They're not different people. They're three different parts of you. It's all you. If that's too much of a hurdle for people to wrap their head around, then there's nothing more I can do about it.

As soon as I release Episode 2, I will rework my game pages, including banners and promotional materials and such to make it less confusing to people. I'll make a clear visual showing which LIs belong to which MCs. For the "hidden" LIs of Derek, I'll include silhouettes instead, though still showing their appearance. Monochrome, lowered transparency, maybe? I'll add a section that we'll call "The Story so far" or something like that and show at which MC and which stage is the game currently in, development-wise. A highlight on current/available acts, and faded colors for the future ones.

I did mention previously, but once the game reaches Gold status, there will be an option to play any MC they want, with a disclaimer that they might miss out on introductions and early character development, but otherwise they can pick up on who the characters are supposed to be with context clues. Each MC's story has a complete love story from start to end, (with the ending being in the short term.) After all three MC's stories are done, there will be an Epilogue act that serves as a final, true ending for all the MCs (in the long term. Maybe marriage is on the table?). So it's Eric to Kurt to Derek to Final Epilogue.

There's really nothing I can do if people cannot self insert. The characters have default names, were introduced with backgrounds, so they're not meant to be blank slates anyway. The renaming of characters is just a simple thing to implement so I did it, and it's just supposed to help with immersion if they truly can't play with the default names. Maybe they hate a guy named Eric, irl? But otherwise, the players have to work with their own imagination, because it's impossible for me to cater to how different people's brains are wired.

But the core of the game will not be changed. I'll work every episode from start to end, the way I've written it, the way I've envisioned it, because that's what I like to do. Maybe you've had instances before as a writer, where you're tasked to write something? Safe, easy, pays good, but it's not something you really like doing. It leaves you hollow inside. That's what it's like for me if Love Strikes Thrice was made any other way than what it is right now.

 

[mtuytj]

I still think it's bad that people assume the worst of a dev whom they don't know yet, whose work they haven't even tried yet. It's like a false accusation wherein new evidence might shed light to the truth, but you're still left with your reputation in tatters.

This seems to be the standard for this forum (and for gaming in general in recent years) because the amount of scummy devs (both of adult games and of normal AAA games etc) is through the roof. When a game comes out it's like a coinflip whether the dev is a lying/scamming POS. And because of that, people are wary of new devs by default, which sucks. Ideally people would wait for clarification or further updates and things would be great, but I also understand the people who are questioning. I wouldn't take it personally, I think every new dev basically gets interrogated and it's nothing to do with you or your character. In fact, you're responding to people thoughtfully which is great.

 

[YogSothoth1982]

I understand that I might have overlooked the knowledge gap between the dev and a player. A dev knows the whole picture because they're the one making it, but the player is left in the dark and connect the dots themselves with little information they have (worse, with misinformation from others adding to it). I won't split the game into three projects, as I still maintain that it's one game split into three parts. They're meant to be connected in a way that Eric's story leads to Kurt's story, then to Derek's story. The other LIs featured in Eric's story aren't meant to be LIs at this point. (Though we know that they are LIs). They're merely background characters, and yes you do get to know them, but not in an intimate way the same way the actual MC assigned to them would get to know them. When we get to Kurt's story, and while we've already been introduced with his LIs through Eric's eyes, we see another side of the LIs that only Kurt sees, and no, we're not picking up from Eric's story. It's not Eric Part 2, it is Kurt's story. We start all over again with Kurt at the center of it. (Though chronologically it is after Eric's story). The 3 LIs of Derek aren't featured because of story reasons. Though players would have met them early on in the story anyway, so it's not meant to be a huge secret. Can't a dev at least have a little bit of mystery in his game where people can speculate?

By the way, there will be no back and forth between the MCs. That's very confusing in plain sight. One after the other only.

I failed to mention that Eric and the LIs you've come to love don't just disappear either. They're still ever-present in Kurt's story. Now I understand people would find this scenario as NTR now, because since you're Kurt, you are seeing Eric with an LI you liked previously. No, you are Eric, you are Kurt, and you are Derek as well. They're not different people. They're three different parts of you. It's all you. If that's too much of a hurdle for people to wrap their head around, then there's nothing more I can do about it.

Okay, I've been clear from the start that there's no NTR in the game. That said, I'm still interested to know if we'll be able to prevent the second and third MCs from having sex and a romantic relationship.

 

[renofrome]

Okay, I've been clear from the start that there's no NTR in the game. That said, I'm still interested to know if we'll be able to prevent the second and third MCs from having sex and a romantic relationship.

I thought about this idea, but ultimately, no. It's too drastic of a change, not just from a storytelling standpoint, but also technically, because that means I'll have to pull out any romantic-adjacent dialogue and scenes which are at the core of the game itself. It'll also be complicated to try and make their decisions to not romance anyone make sense. Not that it's impossible, but that is a lot of extra work. Also, the third MC's story is unique, in that, having no romance does not fit him at all.