Ren'Py Lust Theory [v0.9.0] [Inceton Games]

[Penfold Mole]

I know this was written with sarcasm, but if we take it at face value that this Lancelot guy really did think Embercat fucked up all of the writing since taking over in S3, it does beg the question by what metric did he use to come to that conclusion?

Was it the, from what I've seen on F95 at least, overwhelmingly positive feedback by the audience, hailing it as salvaging the train wreck left by S2, and doing some nice character growth with each installment?

Was it the frequency of the updates, which were close to almost a week per at times, compared to most other devs, team or not, that would typically take at least 1-3 months for the size of these updates?

Was it the lack of complete asspulls that made the plot an incoherent mess?

When comparing the two endings of the latest update as a compare/contrast exercise, was his work too satisfying?

Was it the complete lack of shitty fucking Lust Time?

Seriously, what was the metric that determined Embercat sucked and needed to be fired?

Likely a combination of all of it. Ember tried to fix something that was designed to suck

 

[Conviction07]

I know this was written with sarcasm, but if we take it at face value that this Lancelot guy really did think Embercat fucked up all of the writing since taking over in S3, it does beg the question by what metric did he use to come to that conclusion?

Was it the, from what I've seen on F95 at least, overwhelmingly positive feedback by the audience, hailing it as salvaging the train wreck left by S2, and doing some nice character growth with each installment?

Was it the frequency of the updates, which were close to almost a week per at times, compared to most other devs, team or not, that would typically take at least 1-3 months for the size of these updates?

Was it the lack of complete asspulls that made the plot an incoherent mess?

When comparing the two endings of the latest update as a compare/contrast exercise, was his work too satisfying?

Was it the complete lack of shitty fucking Lust Time?

Seriously, what was the metric that determined Embercat sucked and needed to be fired?

It ultimately all comes down to money. Inceton's revenue took a big drop somewhere during season 2 and it hasn't been able to recover since. This is just my opinion, but when they hired Embercat to take over the writing of Lust Theory, they likely did it with the unfair expectation that he'd fix whatever went wrong before, and gain back all those lost patrons. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, and it's easier to put the onus of responsibility on the new guy they don't have a personal relationship with, who they can easily swap out with someone new if the desired results weren't achieved. That's not something they can do with the trio of owners at the top who actually run shit.

The point I'm trying to make is that Lancelot is not creatively minded, he's a numbers guy. And if Lust Theory was pulling in the numbers he wanted and needed it to, he'd be blowing Embercat right about now, telling him how good he thinks his writing is. But it's not, so obviously it must be because the writing sucks and story is boring. I suspect the same thing happened with me, too. And I say suspect because I was never even officially let go, or given a reason as to why I wasn't needed any longer. It literally went from having a 5 year long working relationship with nary an argument had, only ever being told they were happy with my work, even visiting them in person where everyone was super lovely and welcoming towards me, to being ghosted a few months later when the game I worked on released on Steam and was a bit of a flop.

 

[rebellare]

Hello everyone,
Lancelot asked me to post a statement here, regarding Inceton Games and our stance on this whole subject/s.

Official Statement on the Termination of Paper Boat
Inceton Games CEO Lancelot

Inceton Games confirms that the professional collaboration with the freelance writer known as Paper Boat (Embercat) has been formally terminated. This decision was made after an extended production period and was based strictly on documented workflow incompatibility, delivery reliability issues, and production pipeline disruption. It was not a personal decision, nor was it based on isolated creative disagreements.
TLDR; Good ideas, bad execution

From the very beginning of the cooperation, Paper Boat was provided with:

• Full production onboarding
  
  
• Clear narrative and content restrictions
  
  
• Render-count limits
  
  
• Technical constraints of static visual novel development
  
  
• Internal approval process
  
  
• Multi-department production workflow explanation (writing → 3D → animation → coding → QA)
  

These expectations were repeatedly confirmed in writing.

1. Repeated Deviation From Agreed Production Direction
Throughout the production of our games, Paper Boat consistently challenged or attempted to rework already-approved core narrative and technical constraints, despite those constraints being directly tied to engine limitations, platform compliance, and internal pipeline safety.

Examples include:

• Attempting to restructure key scenes after they were already staged for render production.
  
  
• Repeatedly questioning core technical restrictions such as signal availability on the island in Lust Bound, which had already been inherited from legacy scripts, causing unnecessary continuity friction.
  
  
• Attempting to introduce narrative mechanics that conflicted with internal platform safety rules and monetization compliance.
  

Each instance required manual intervention from production leadership and the code team to prevent downstream breakage.




2. Excessive and Disruptive Communication Volume
While initiative is valued, communication volume reached an operationally disruptive level. The writer regularly sent:

• Multi-page breakdowns for minor scene confirmations
  
  
• Late-night and weekend multi-message analysis dumps
  
  
• Repeated follow-ups on non-blocking issues within hours of earlier messages
  

Despite management clearly stating weekend unavailability and production scheduling limits, communication continued at a level that impaired task prioritization and delayed approvals for other departments.

This created a situation where production management time became dominated by communication overhead instead of actual execution.




3. Delivery of Unfinished and Non-Finalized Material
Although significant writing volume was produced, a consistent pattern emerged of delivering material that was not production-ready, including:

• Draft-state scenes entered into Celtx without final technical validation full of grammatical errors and story inconsistencies.
  
  
• Placeholder logic embedded into scenes that conflicted with Ren’Py implementation rules
  
  
• Scenes submitted without full path validation for branching logic
  

These issues required additional rewriting and restructuring by multiple internal staff members, including production leadership and engineering support, in order to bring the material up to deployment standard.




4. High Frequency of Post-Submission Corrections
A large portion of submitted material required post-delivery correction due to:

• Continuity conflicts with earlier episodes
  
  
• Pacing problems caused by exceeding render limits
  
  
• Technical conflicts with animation sequencing
  
  
• Conflict with pre-established character behavior constraints
  

Several scenes required full rewrites after submission, not minor edits. These rewrites were performed under deadline pressure in order to protect the production schedule.




5. Premature Financial and Long-Term Control Discussions
Despite Episode 3 not yet being finalized and undergoing multiple active revisions, repeated discussions were initiated regarding:

• Early payment
  
  
• Payment in advance
  
  
• Payment for a story that was not complete or riddled with mistakes.

These discussions occurred before the successful delivery of a fully completed, locked production episode, which is not aligned with Inceton Games’ standard contractual workflow.

6. Direct Production Pipeline Impact
As a direct result of the above issues:

• The 3D and animation teams repeatedly paused production while waiting for corrected scripts.
  
  
• The coding team was forced to delay implementation due to unresolved branching and continuity conflicts.
  
  
• Render scheduling became inconsistent due to late structural changes.
  
  
• Internal release projections had to be actively protected through emergency resource reassignment.
  

This level of disruption is not sustainable in a multi-project studio environment operating on strict delivery windows.




Final Determination
Inceton Games operates under a high-output, multi-disciplinary production model where:

• Writers
  
  
• 3D artists
  
  
• Animators
  
  
• Code team
  
  
• QA
  
  
• Release management
  

must operate in tight synchronization.

While Paper Boat demonstrated enthusiasm and creative investment, the collaboration ultimately failed to meet the operational standards required for reliability, scalability, and production stability.

For these reasons, the collaboration was terminated in the interest of:

• Project continuity
  
  
• Team efficiency
  
  
• Deadline protection
  
  
• Financial stability
  
  
• Operational risk management
  

Legal & Professional Clarifications

• This termination was not disciplinary.
  
  
• It was not personal.
  
  
• It was not retaliation-based.
  
  
• It was based on documented workflow failure and delivery unreliability.
  
  
• All delivered work is being handled in accordance with internal review and contractual obligations.
  
  
• No further private development materials will be discussed publicly.
  

Closing Statement
Inceton Games will not engage in public arguments, speculation, or social media disputes regarding internal production matters. The company remains focused on its team, its players, and its release roadmap.

 

[rebellare]

And secondly...

Official Statement Regarding Inceton Games and F95
Inceton Games would like to formally address ongoing misinformation regarding our status on the F95 platform.

We confirm that Inceton Games is currently not operating on F95. However, this situation did not occur due to review-bombing or DRM implementation, or any attempt to restrict player access, as has been incorrectly claimed in some public discussions.

For the sake of full transparency, the actual reason for the conflict with F95 is as follows:




The Actual Cause of the Dispute
Inceton Games entered into direct communication with F95 administrators with two specific requests:

1. A short grace period (a few days) before new game updates were mirrored on F95, so that:
   
   • Paying supporters on Patreon would receive early access and value for their support
     
     
   • Development funding would remain viable
     
2. The ability to moderate the discussion threads for our own games, which:
   
   • Is a privilege granted to many other developers on F95
     
     
   • Is necessary to:
     
     • Remove impersonation
       
       
     • Prevent malicious misinformation
       
       
     • Maintain accurate patch notes and developer communication
       

These were standard, professional requests aimed at protecting paying supporters, maintaining project stability, and ensuring responsible community management.

F95’s Response
Both requests were formally denied by F95 administration.

Following this refusal, a breakdown in cooperation occurred. This is the sole and direct reason for the "conflict" between Inceton Games and F95.

The disagreement was purely policy-based and administrative in nature.


Final Position
The dispute with F95 exists because:

• We requested time-limited Patreon exclusivity
  
  
• We requested basic moderation control over our own official threads
  
  
• These requests were denied
  
  
• As a result, cooperation ceased

We are aware that this message might be deleted by the F95 administrators because sharing this is not in their interest.
No further comments will be made Inceton games.

 

[James-of-alabama]

The core reason how lancelot treats the people is financial,pure capitalism coming from people of ex socialist country.but seriously if LT 3 sell very well on steam who will take the credit.curious to know.

 

[matko2004]

The core reason how lancelot treats the people is financial,pure capitalism coming from people of ex socialist country.but seriously if LT 3 sell very well on steam who will take the credit.curious to know.

I love how that's your conclusion after reading all that.

 

[James-of-alabama]

I love how that's your conclusion after reading all that.

I just read conviction,not the other wall of text.the other was just babbling how embercat didnt synchronize with the rest of the team and made them lose time and resources

 

[CJAM2002]

Thanks for these official statements rebellare, it's good to see some official words from Inceton themselves.

I won't debate either of these, I've looked on the official Discord and it doesn't look like either of these statements are there yet, be curious to see what the reaction will be on the Discord server. That said, render limits is certainly something interesting to have in place, and might indeed be affecting writers ability to write a good story. Execution comes down to many people of course.

Regarding the conflict with f95. The reason their games are banned from being promoted is indeed because of rating manipulation of Lust Bound (it's why you can't post a proper review of that game), and quite possibly the DRM stuff. Although the rating manipulation was 100% a thing that happened, you can look back at around when that happened on the Lust Bound thread, and you can see the note from the moderators to ban Inceton from being promoted. That said, Inceton's requests are quite reasonable, and asking for a few days before the game is leaked is a fair call. Moderation can lead to many things, and can go either good or bad, we just don't know.

 

[James-of-alabama]

I remember well the cause of the games be banned from front Page was the review bombing of lust bound,only that.The day after, his games stopped to be promoted.In the past lancelot said to all people of f95zone go fuck themselves too.

 

[matko2004]

From what I read in the statement, the review bombing is not denied.
We confirm that Inceton Games is currently not operating on F95. However, this situation did not occur due to review-bombing

It just states that they refuse to be active on F95 because their requests were not met by F95 admins.

 

[James-of-alabama]

I just said about the games be banned from front page because review bombing,they stopped be active after they said to all f95zone go fuck themselves,prolly after the requests not be attended.

 

[Asukaki]

Well, this is a nice surprise. For a moment I forgot about this game until I saw it yesterday on my GOG library.
I must say, holy shit!. They really were able to fix the story and save the game (for the most part).

By how the story was going up to version 6 (last time I play it) I thought they would go with the "Alice is a villain and consciously or unconciously trapped the MC in the timeloop, When she noticed MC being conscious of the loop she thought of having an opportunity with him, but after seeing all his shennigans with other women, jelously got the best of her and schemed all the simulation-end of the world thing. Just to snap out of it (Perhaps with Carol's intervention, erasing her memory, making her forget her broken heart) and finally revealing herself (Or Carol hitting the reset button in the panic). Giving him an opportunity to fix his mess in hopes he redeem himself and thus saving the world from the broken heart of Alice?" or something along those lines but the whole Mother-Carol plot, even tho it kinda feel rushed, it works!.

I would say this has some potential for a 4th and final season (Alice feels betrayed by Carol's actions and develops some tools to help MC fix each girl life while she tries to deal with MC's past in the loop. This leads her to rediscover her sexuality and a new angle of interest for MC (more kinky). And something something with the butterfly effect, unexpected consequences each time they "fix" the life of a girl. everyone gets more involved and that leads to everyone being aware of time loops and the only solution is being aware of each other place in MC's Bed, a.k.a the Harem ending, oooh yeah! . Lmfao). But reading all the drama, Im good if this is the definitive end.