VN Ren'Py Lust Road [Development Thread]

[xxx3me]

Hello guys! After a few months of work, I'm finally creating this thread, since now I have something "playable" to show. I really didn't want to simply drop a bunch of images here.

It's an alpha release of LUST ROAD, my first VN.​

Who am I, and how am I producing it?

I have to start it saying that there is A LOT to be done. Up to now, I have around 1.5 hours of "gameplay" (maybe less if you read fast ), but all main characters and scenarios are there, so you can have a solid idea of what is about.

To sum up: I'm producing this VN using Ren'py and Daz Studio as main tools - others are things like Photoshop, Atom, etc, you know the drill. I'm not experienced in game design (professionally saying), but I have experience with graphic design. My only previous contact with game designing was studying Unity (didn't go too far, yet) and making some small things in Harlowe (a browser based format for Twine engine).

My current work machine is very "not recommended" for such kind of work, so sadly I can produce no more than 3 or 4 renders/day (working hard). If my Patreon succeeds, a hardware update is my main priority to speed up the process (I'm working with no dedicated GPU at the moment - Ryzen 4650G being spanked like a good bitch).

By other side, I like a lot to write and I have two fantasy-fiction small books in my Native language, Portuguese (one as co-author published for a small indie company and another in a never ending loop project).

PLOT

Lust Road tells the story of a woman, Kate "Red" Thomas. She was the daughter of Frank "Rat" Thomas, co-founder of "Street Dogs Motorcycle Club" in the fictional town of Los Pampas - probably somewhere on the west coast of the USA. This is Kate in title screen art, with the bike she inherited from her late father::

Rat was killed 4 years before the main events of history. Since then, Kate has become the Dogs' president, promoting several changes. Previously known as a place for crazy parties, drugs and crime, it is now a respected club.

The other co-founder of was John "Flame" Coburn. He was Frank's best friend, a guy with serious family problems and who enjoyed “the good life” of hookers, partying and drinking. But as soon as Frank died, he ended up in prison, paying a four-year sentence in federal prison (not related to Rat's death).

During this time, even seeing him as a surrogate older brother, Kate abandoned Flame, as he was part of the "Old Street Dogs", something they were trying to leave behind. Now he's out and about two things: get his club back and his hands on Kate, something he's always wanted to do but never could because of his father's protection.

For that, he will have the help of a dangerous man, Nikolai, a drug dealer mobster and responsible for many other criminal activities in Los Pampas, including gambling, prostitution and human trafficking. They have a common interest in Kate and the Street Dogs.



"GAMEPLAY"

The story flows like any VN, with some mini-games interwined with the dialogues. At now, there is a small card game, but I plan to add more elements like timers for quick answers, QTEvents, and some others (NO GRIND AT ALL). There is a basic template of a store working, but it's not important for the story at this point.

The screen shows the stats of the main character, Kate, including the main ones: her levels of Lust and Submission.

If they are too high, Kate will be more prone to lewd behavior - sometimes the player may lose control of her, who will act by her own will. Those levels will increase or reduce depending on player's choices along the story.

In some points, Kate will make choices that can change a lot the future of the story. Those are KEY CHOICES - the player will recognize them by a red background and a special effect.

(If you play, yes, I was trying to somehow emulate those Life is Strange choice screens; maybe I do it better in future releases)



One thing that I wanted to include, based in my previous experience playing VNs, was face thumbnails in the dialogue box. They have different expressions and I did it because sometimes I'm so focused on dialogues that I don't notice facial changes on screen - this is something that bothers me in a lot of games. The way I did, I never miss a change of expression

WHAT IS IT ABOUT?

As the name implies, the main theme is a "lust road". The MC deals with a lot of new sexual situations in her life, and it's up to the player to decide how she will handle them. The player also decides whether she will be more or less submissive to male characters such as Flame and her friends, Nikolai and others. This will, little by little, help her to collect material to her investigations, but at the cost of perhaps changing Kate's personality.

Don't expect any of the male counterparts to have a "romance" with feelings for the MC (not in the usual way we see in many VNs). Even though she's having a relationship with them, it's much more sex-based. This is a story about corruption, betrayal and suspense.

WHAT IS IT NOT ABOUT?

There are things that I don't plan to add in Lust Road:

• male gay content (not probable at all - nothing against, but I have no interest in write it)
• femdom
• romance - no plans of romance for the main characters, but I don't know in future for less important ones
• NTR - since there is no romance, I don't see how I would implement it. Besides, it's way out of the story I plan to deliver
• Gore, vore, etc - even having a lot of bad guys around, I don't like extreme violence, so don't expect for anything like this.

STYLE

I try to keep my character most "human" as possible - I'm not into those superbustyassy girls or Hulk dudes, with supernatural shapes. Of course, there is a few exceptions, like the very busty "nun" Lauren and well endowed guys, but none of them are inhuman bimbos.

Some of the characters:



FUTURE

First, I have the story almost complete (at least the main events). To don't give impression that I'm "milking" Patreons, I'm warning from now that, if I follow my current plans, it's going to be split in 12 chapters.

So, it means that I already have the beginning and the "true" ending of the story. Of course, I'll be working in much more content to drive the MC until there and a lot will happen. This alpha release have a Chapter 0, with a long introduction to the main characters and plot, and the beginning of the Chapter 1, with the first day of Kate working at the Club27.

In my list of "to-do":

• Finish the store system
• Read-proof: as I said, English is not my first language and I didn't show my text to a Native speaker yet, so please ignore any serious gramatical mistake.
• Improve the map: the current map is a very basic model, I really don't like it and it's definitely not the final version.
• Achievements, gallery: only a template, not working properly. Lots to be done.
• Dictionary: already working with some entries, but needs improvement (style, writing, etc)

And many more.

HOW (AND WHY) TO PLAY

Thanks for playing. You can download the alpha version right now (around 500 MB - thanks LightmanP for pointing it )

• Mega

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• Mediafire

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TAGS - some active, some planned: corruption, blackmail, MILF, drugs, voyeurism, daddy, school, jail, investigation, anal, masturbation, oral

HOW TO HELP

All feedback can help, so feel free to give your constructive opinion (things like "this sucks because it sucks" are not constructive - explain why).

Also, if you trust this project,

• Contribute on Patreon

You must be registered to see the links

• Contact via Discord

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I don't have very solid plans for Patreon's money now (since I'm just starting and it would sound kind of megalomaniac). But if it works, I want to deliver this full story and many others. Let's see what happens. Contributors will be able to have first hand releases, take part in polls, etc.

MORE IMAGES

More images of the alpha release 001:











Seeya!

 

[LightmanP]

Looks interesting, always good to have more female protagonist games. Good luck with the game!

Maybe consider adding a button to hide the top stat screen or getting rid of its background and just making text there contrasting with some shadow. Maybe make it smaller as well? It clutters the screen imo, wouldn't want to look at it all the time.

You can download the alpha version right now (around 500 GB)

Should be 500 MB

 

[xxx3me]

Maybe consider adding a button to hide the top stat screen or getting rid of its background and just making text there contrasting with some shadow. Maybe make it smaller as well? It clutters the screen imo, wouldn't want to look at it all the time.

A shortcut to hide seems possible. I tried with no background and it was too messy in some scenes. Thanks!

 

[Otherguy2012]

Full screen option should be added.
Trying it out now,but it was something I noticed right away. Having a border around detracts from the immersion.
Loads of static on the history button(I have never seen this before).
No labels on any button(lower right),the icons are small to me and I am playing on a 32inch screen.So either slightly larger or labels?
Working on my playthrough now.
You do not gain 500 after agree to "work" at the club.
Inventory? I did not find it.
Purchasing an item seems to work,but inspecting it leads to image errors.
DOM stat?Without a DOM path the story matters much less,the game becomes about
turning a woman who runs a biker club into a SUB,not a problem for everyone though.
Lust seems to fall to zero way to easy?
Some of the renders could use a little work like step sister laying in the living room.
Interesting introduction and a good start for a game.
Well done.

 

[xxx3me]

Full screen option should be added.
Trying it out now,but it was something I noticed right away. Having a border around detracts from the immersion.
Loads of static on the history button(I have never seen this before).
No labels on any button(lower right),the icons are small to me and I am playing on a 32inch screen.So either slightly larger or labels?
Working on my playthrough now.
You do not gain 500 after agree to "work" at the club.
Inventory? I did not find it.
Purchasing an item seems to work,but inspecting it leads to image errors.
DOM stat?Without a DOM path the story matters much less,the game becomes about
turning a woman who runs a biker club into a SUB,not a problem for everyone though.
Lust seems to fall to zero way to easy?
Some of the renders could use a little work like step sister laying in the living room.
Interesting introduction and a good start for a game.
Well done.

Thanks for the input! By parts:

1. Which borders do you mean? Did you try to press F to make it fullscreen?
2. The static effect is part of the ingame menu background, not definitive. But good to know you don't like it, opinions are important.
3. The store is still being implemented, it's a pretty early template. Anyway, I didn't get the said error on my working files or the distributed alpha version.
4. A DOM path for Kate is not planned at the moment.
5. The lust is a more "transitory" value, so it will drop to zero after orgasms, and quickly (or not so) raise when she is around sexual situations. It's different from the SUB stat, that changes based on her actions, answers, etc.
6. I'll definitely work more on some renders for future releases. Sadly, they take a lot of time in my current machine what could prevent me of putting the alpha out as I wanted.

 

[xxx3me]

Updating:

For some time, I'll be working in a bunch of basic stuff that were out of the alpha, such as the achievement system, galleries, the dictionary, etc. It wouldn't be cool to deal with it much later just to find out something was missing early in the project.

Now it does have a button to toggle show/hide the top bar. Some people complained about it tooking too much space. Those stats are really important, but feel free to hide it if you want

Bar on:



Bar off:



UI

The mini menu is also remade with labels instead of buttons. The interface was remade (new font, icons) and reorganized - the "Extra" menu containing tools like gallery, scene viewer, achievements and the Dictionary.

By the way, the option for a white interface was removed, it was messing too much with some visuals and I don't really think it's necessary.



Right now, I'm experimenting with a few visuals for the Gallery and Dictionary -- probably goind ahead with this one that is nearly finished (of course, more entries will come in along the story).



With all those things "under the hood" done, I can work more confortable with the Chapter 1 (and some improvements to the intro, like better renders). Seeya!

 

[ChairmanDude]

Ok, I played the whole thing and I have a lot to say, this will be a gigantic textwall so be ready… beforehand, i want to say that it will be some serious criticism but I’m trying to be constructive as possible, after all, i can’t hide it, i genuinely liked the game, a lot actually.

I will try my best to separate what I think is objective criticism and what is more related to my personal taste.

(This message is filled with spoilers so yea, avoid reading it if you care about it.)


First of all, let's start with what I believe to be more objective, and on top of that, let's start with the positive points:


I think that you are going in the right direction when it comes to aesthetics, artistically speaking at least, of course, I noticed a lot of grain here and there, but it is worthless to mention due to your hardware limitations, as you stated multiple times already.

I would like to expressly praise your work so far in the UI, special effects, and Character design, the two first being very competent and the latter being far above the average for eroge standards. I liked the logo, the small changes in the menus, and I like how you used those red and vintage effects during some sections in-game, everything simple but solid, and when it comes to the characters, they are in general, very well made, especially the protagonist herself, her appearance says a lot about her personality and background by itself, what is objectively something good for character design (I also liked how in the flashbacks, she is shown with full hair and a ponytail, indicating character development).

The only character that I personally disliked aesthetically is Fab (that I disliked as a character in general too, but I will come into that later), his haircut is totally fine but his clothes are way out of place for a biker club (i know that it was on purpose, to visually represent how he is different from the other members, but you overdid it tbh) giving the impression that he is someone totally random and unimportant, this amount of contrast could have worked well in some circumstances but since everyone else from the cast blends so well together, this isn’t working here, I should also point that he lacks the facial detail that most of the other masculine characters have, honestly, he looks like a doll most of the time.
The only other complaint is Rick, that was supposed to be Latino but looks more like a Scandinavian, it might have something to do with his background right? maybe…

My only “objective” criticism outside of aesthetics is far more relevant I guess, it is specifically about the scene with Neil in the club, essentially, I do think that it is pretty bad to force the player to engage in some sort of erotic activity with him given the context, and becomes far worse since the whole thing is caused by a misunderstanding, I think that I played every possible outcome of the thing and even in the “cleaner” ending Kate still expose her privates while Neil masturbates, I could see this scene being easily avoidable if Kate had the option of questioning about the nature of the job from start, or at least from a given point, this might sound kinda dumb but I think that keeping this sort of enforced eroticism (narratively speaking) avoidable is a better idea since it would give the player a higher feeling of control and choice and would allow players that would not like to see the MC being molested (or similar) to enjoy the game, this is a note for future content i guess.

Now what i think is more subjective, and more related to my personal taste, those might be more related to me only but i do think that they are equally important:

Let’s start with the characters, I liked most of them in general, even if apart from Kate and Flame, most of them don’t have much time on screen, I guess that after the protagonist, my favorite character is Clair (clearly, not “the best girl” but rather instead, a character that works well narratively), there are only four major concerns with the cast in my opinion.

The bigger one is Flame, I know that Flame is supposed to be hateable, but you overdid it, I can’t think of a single redeeming characteristic about him, which is not an objectively bad thing for a character that is supposed to be the antagonist, but given the connection with Kate’s background and the fact that obviously, there will be a sex scene between the two soon or later, I see a lot of wasted potentials here, like, in the start of the game, when the two meet again, I noticed an interesting dynamic between the two (Flame being too egocentric and hedonistic and Kate being more responsible and emphatic) for some time i thought that it could evolve into a love route (that IMO is usually better than mindless sex), however, given how he treated Kate so far this line of narrative is impossible, I genuinely think that you could keep all the major plotlines and yet reform Flame into a less hateable character, maybe by exploring his relationship with Kate’s dad more? or maybe exploring (even more) his insecurity, giving him a more human side? Think about it.

After the flame, I think that the major problem with a character is related to Cindy, and this one is pretty easy to point out: Her only characteristic is being nymphomaniac and that is extremely boring. It is pretty hard to minimally care about her in that way to be honest, maybe giving her a bit more of personality would help.

Now, Fab, as I mentioned earlier, I didn’t like him as a character, his only characteristics are being a nerd and a simp and so far, his purpose has been simply being a low budget comic relief, honestly, unless if you have some actual role for the lad in the plot other than being an unfunny side character I genuinely don’t see why keeping him at all.

And lastly, Rick, this isn’t exactly a complaint but rather instead a suggestion, especially because I genuinely liked this lad, essentially, when he interacts with Flame in the Shotgun scene, Flame asks if he would shot “his old president” implying that Rick is a member of the Dogs since back when Flame was still around, however, this is contested by Rick’s bio in the encyclopedia when it says that he joined just after Kate becoming prez… My suggestion is to simply adjust his background to fit with Flame’s line and make Rick a veteran of the Dogs who joined before Kate took over, this would allow the narrative to focus a bit in how he supports Kate’s reforms and how he repudiates the old life at the club, maybe even more than Kate herself, God, you can maybe even add some internal conflicts due to his regrets from the past… all this would interestingly contrast with Flame if you are interested in making multiple love routes or something.

Now, to finish my last criticism is towards the plot itself, specifically the blackmail thing… Don’t get me wrong, everything else is fine to me tbh, I enjoyed everything a lot, but the whole blackmail thing… is pretty dumb in my opinion, honestly, as I mentioned earlier, I couldn’t care less for Cindy so most of the time I was genuinely angered in how Kate is forced to do everything to avoid Cindy’s sex tapes to leak, like, hell, it is so dumb, it was Cindy who voluntarily allowed people to take sex tapes of her, so this whole plotline is not very convincing and don’t gives me any incentive to help Cindy… Maybe if Cindy had her life threatened it would work far better… and by the way, the consequence of such events, more specifically how Kate ends working in the club, isn’t really a logical turn of events too, in my opinion, it would maybe work better if instead of planning unnecessarily complex plot to turn Kate into a sex slave, Nikolay simply demanded the money that Kate’s dad owed him and sent Flame to ensure it, so with no clue of where the money is and no other place to work on, she decides to work in the club (heck, this whole line would maybe even make the whole scene with Neil more logical, since Kate would feel genuinely forced to take the job by any means necessary to get the money to protect Cindy’s life) but of course, all this would imply in a gigantic amount of change that you are more than likely not willing to take, but yeah, i wanted to give my opinion anyway.

So… to conclude this gigantic textwall: I REALLY enjoyed the whole experience, even if i sounded overly critical or harsh in this message, i do think that in general, your work so far has been amazing and this project have a lot of potential, something that i will surely keep my eye on… And honestly, can you make a Discord server or something? I wanted to have a place to talk even more about the game in a more direct way, so yeah, I would definitely join.

Thanks for posting the game and good luck mate.

 

[xxx3me]

ChairmanDude, don't worry. That's the kind of criticism that any author could expect. Thank you very much for your points.

I know opinions don't need to be disputed, but I can't comment too much on most of your points because I would be giving massive spoilers on what I have already written or planned. All I can say is: most of the points about characters that you got (well done), were on purpose. Maybe I really overdid some of features, but they all have a purpose later in the story; I feel them as plausible and/or very important.

Example: maybe Fab is a little "doll" and I can do something about it; I was looking for a much younger and baby-faced dude compared to bad guys like Bull and Dean. And Flame, well... He was made to be a REAL piece of shit, I really hope nobody likes him despite of his familiar dramas in past. I mentally said "gooood..." reading "I can’t think of a single redeeming characteristic about him"

One thing I admit is questionable is Rick being a "Scandinavian-like" guy and latino (I mean, no problem at all, I live in South America and I know a bunch of guys like him), but you can see Flame mocking about it, something like "the blonde latino red-cheeked boy?" because I know it's unusual. There is no reason for this in the story, it was just a personal pick.

And yet about Rick: you're very right. The mistake is in the encyclopedia (it's actually in a very early stage, I wrote it and didn't even check later). He was around just before Flame was arrested. This will be fixed in future releases. And about Neil, I will consider your opinion.

One last thing I can comment is about Kate and her reasons. I know some people will feel her as naive (or dumb, or both), but deep inside, she always wanted a family, affection, etc. You know, she lost her father not long after they finally got closer, and her mother wasn't so nice (this will be explored), she doesn't have brothers or sisters. Cindy shows up and suddenly fills that gap in her life. This is one of the points of the story: how far Kate is going to protect her.

Thanks again!

 

[ChairmanDude]

xxx3me Perfectly understandable...

I think that i could point out a few more random and unecessarily detailed opinions that I would be able to come with, but i guess that you and anyone else reading this thread had enough of my textwall capabilities...

About Rick, by presuming that he comes from a hispanic country, i must say that unlike Brazil, as far i'm aware, there are not a lot of people with such apparence coming from those places, since they didn't had a lot of emigration from places like Germany or Scandinavia, but honestly it is a irrelevant detail.

Oh, and btw, didn't mentioned it, but I kinda guessed that you are a brazilian by the in-game reference to Mother Teresa (that is a well known figure in Brazil) and the fact that the father of Cindy is Brazilian, apart of course, of you mentioning that your native language is Portuguese... Enfim, é interessante ver um compatriota no caminho certo, boa sorte mais uma vez.

 

[ChairmanDude]

Any News?

 

[DavidLunch]

I enjoy the premise of this game, and you have clearly done a lot of worldbuilding which I love, great job on that already!

 

[xxx3me]

Any News?

Sorry guys for the long time without news. In fact I was super busy with "real life". I got it back this month and now producing more content. Thanks again for your opinions, hope to have more in a few weeks.