VN Ren'Py Made Marion [v2.05EA] [Velvet Cupcake Games]

[215303j]

Beauty and the Beast?
(snip)
anthropomorphic foxes

Those are good points.

My point in my previous post was that people should not claim that a significant percentage of people in medieval Britain were black and that it is therefore logical or ok that some character might as well be black.

With any retelling of an old tale, the question is how close you want to stay with the historical reality.

Beauty and the Beast was a folktale without any clear historical basis but which was first written down and published in 1756. It does not mean it was actually set in that period or any other historical period. As such, fantasy. Belle could be white, black, green or purple. Or it could be set in France of 1756 which is where it was first written down.

Robin Hood on the other hand, is a folktale which does seem to have some historical basis. Although it is vague, it does clearly reference to England and the Middle Ages. This puts it in a certain context where UFO's or black people are not likely to exist, but where knights and castles do exist. Antropomorphic characters is a way to tell a story by superimposing the animals archetypes (foxes are smart, bears are strong) to human characters. Unless someone considers a black man an archetype (strong and silent apparently) it doesn't really have a place in a historical-ish story.

On the other hand, a black man could have a place in a Robin Hood retelling in another context which is not medieval England but some other context, like a typical high fantasy one with elfs and orcs.

With regards to The Witcher and Kingdom Come, something similar happens. The Witcher is clearly fantasy based on the Middle Ages where black people may or may not exist (up to the creator of the fantasy). Kingdom Come on the other hand is a representation which tries to be historically accurate. The likely hood of encountering a black person in Bohemia in 1403 would be extremely slim and so such a person should not be in the game (unless for a very good reason) and neither should an Eskimo or Maori or another chronically underrepresented ethnicity.

TLDR, I'm fine with black people in a fantasy context (loosely based on the European Middle Ages or not) but not with them in a more or less historically accurate representation.

 

[kyoh21]

How about we shut the fuck up about this historical accuracy bullshit? No one is changing anyone's mind here, so it's all just a waste of time. It's a FUCKING PORN SITE.

 

[SteelyDan14]

Beauty and the Beast? Bad example. No one should be batting an eye over some background characters filling space and voice-overs until the last seconds of film, black or otherwise. But people did do it. You just did it, and you're not the only one with this not so Unpopular Opinion. My literal point was how pointless it is that people go out of their way in these threads to explain why they want to see less black people once anyone calls that sort of thing out. Who cares what the media is doing? It's someone's personal problem if it makes them have a grudge against black people. It's fiction, sweet Satan. There's no point being so hot over it that people try to give a history lesson or feel the need to claw at "The way the world is" to try to rationalize complaining or wanting the existence of black people in fiction to be justified. Just treat black people in fiction the same way as in reality: Sometimes they just happen to exist--stupid and strange to spend any time wondering why. Senseless to want the reason for their existence to be made clear. I'm sure no one who clicked on this was dumb enough to think they were coming for an interactive by-the-book retelling of Robin Hood, especially not with their being a female love interest. 2, actually, I think. Double-especially, after their being a literal version with animals. I'm just imagining people stumbling upon the Disney version and breaking down into wails of "Hey, they weren't foxes! This is wrong and let me tel you why!! First off, the number of anthropomorphic foxes back then--" This just simply doesn't need to be an issue every. Single. Time.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me, wanting less black characters is more about the stereotypical porn game black dude who swings his BBC and makes all the women cream and bow to their impressive cocks and all the while being a total arrogant a-hole. There have been a few really good black characters in some of these games, but in most cases they seem to be just inserted for the BBC effect and nothing else. IMO, some good examples are in Acting Lessons, being a DIK, Anna EA, or The Tyrant.

In this case, I had no issue with Little Jon being black but I will admit I initially thought he was going to be a porn game stereo type; instead, he turns out to be a little too nice. Regardless... for me there is no issue with black characters, I just hate the way a lot of them are portrayed.

 

[fabulous007]

Thialf -> Beauty and the Beast was explicietly set in France, tho I don't remember is any time period is mentioned (you can only guess it from the descriptions I suppose). It's more or less a tale but it's not set in a fantasy world like Sleeping Beauty (tho fantasy may be an anachronism for the original versions, but you understood me).
Anyway this topic has been going on for far too long, let's just talk about the game.

 

[hanswon]

I can't speak for everyone, but for me, wanting less black characters is more about the stereotypical porn game black dude who swings his BBC and makes all the women cream and bow to their impressive cocks and all the while being a total arrogant a-hole. There have been a few really good black characters in some of these games, but in most cases they seem to be just inserted for the BBC effect and nothing else. IMO, some good examples are in Acting Lessons, being a DIK, Anna EA, or The Tyrant.

In this case, I had no issue with Little Jon being black but I will admit I initially thought he was going to be a porn game stereo type; instead, he turns out to be a little too nice. Regardless... for me there is no issue with black characters, I just hate the way a lot of them are portrayed.

I would say, "but that's pretty much every dude in porn games, especially with the booming incest economy having even hot siblings mildewing panties over their nerd brothers...but that would not be quite true. It comes down to the writing here, agreed--with the black people being the same "thug" from a music video or BBC porno in 90% of the games, because no dev has ever met an actual black guy or something. I'll submit to your list of examples Tyrone in Good Girl Gone Bad. Literally just Kanye West but with the Black Porno Guy Personality DLC installed. I was mostly annoyed because he had that line about hating "hoes" so it made me think something different was finally happening. I was a dumbass, because about two scenes later he's passing you off to all his friends. And no lie, I was half expecting Little Jon to be a Lil Jon stand in here...which segways me back onto topic:

While he's not my favorite character in this game, he's alright. And what's much better than alright is the overall game. Hoping to see more. I'm glad some f/f was thrown in, too, because it increases the odds of this game not dying in the water. Original artwork is always a plus.

 

[fearsa]

the opening scene has huge numbers of massive amanita mushrooms, totally inaccurate, i will not stand for such mushroomwashing in otome games

 

[RNDM]

People here need to brush up on their Medieval chivalric romances, which had Moorish knights wandering all over the place in France and England (usually in "noble adversary" sort of role - both sides quickly noticed their professional warrior classes had very similar codes of honour). Reminder also that the "classic" timeframe of Robin Hood is the height of the Crusades when it was common enough for the Atlantic monarchs to hire ships and crews from the Baltic to get their armies to the Levant (due to assorted practical problems with sailing *back* through the Gibraltar the return trip was made overland), pilgrims and artisans traveled the length and breadth of Europe, pirates and traders (the difference between the two tending to be one of opportunity) rubbed shoulders with nominal religious enemies in ports all over the Mediterranean, Muslims and Christians lived cheek to jowl in the Iberian peninsula, Sicily and some corners of Italy, and so on and so on.

A North African in the woods of the East Midlands would certainly be unusual and conspicuous but hardly impossible. In terms of long-established sea routes Moorish Spain and the Atlantic parts of the Maghreb were practically next door after all.

 

[joe powa]

Lesbian planed ?

 

[RNDM]

Lesbian planed ?

Read the first page.

 

[Jalapenosbythehandful]

It's not hard.
Don't like the Black character, don't pick him.

"Oh but he jars my realism!"
A: Robin Hood is not based on reality and frequently deals with issues that aren't remotely accurate to the time or location. Hell, it's entirely likely a real Robin Hood would've been (to quote my history teacher when talking about Richard III "Lionheart") Gay as the Day Was Long. RNDM is absolutely right, the concept of Europe being this disney fairytale where everyone is white doesn't really fit with what we know of history. It would've been rare, sure, but it's not out of the realm of even probability.

The art style is amazing and the characters and writing are passable, I'm genuinely excited to see where this goes.
I would ask that the devs consider re-adding the commands at the bottom (auto, skip, log) because I don't really understand why devs keep removing them, but hey I can autohotkey and press ?l?.

 

[adr91]

Thank you, a good game with good looking dudes and no girls with dick.

 

[Virulenz]

I'm a little confused after reading about the love interests...Meissa sounds female, but there is no lesbian tag?
Did you just forget the tag or is Meissa a guy?

 

[PeaceToTheHuts]

Will there be corruption options?

 

[Zedire]

Just to let those people know who have asked or are curious, there are going to be 7 romances (plus an additional as a stretch goal during the Kickstarter). Of the 7, 5 will be male, 1 will be female and 1 will be non-binary. The stretch goal romance is also male.

EDIT: Only the first three guys and the stretch goal (Layton Tuck) are in this demo.

Also, it states somewhere (I think at the start of the game?) that the game is set in Avalon. It contains a strong fae aspect, which anyone who has played the demo will know (which I'm personally not into but whatever).

Lastly, there are going to be sex scenes in it, but they'll likely only be descriptive, not visual - though it's been mentioned that may change down the track. There won't be any animations.

I have nothing to do with the project, just reciting what I've read.

I would ask that the devs consider re-adding the commands at the bottom (auto, skip, log) because I don't really understand why devs keep removing them, but hey I can autohotkey and press ?l?.

Not sure about auto or log, but you can skip by holding down CTRL. Works for all games made in Ren'py (unless it's disabled).

I'm a little confused after reading about the love interests...Meissa sounds female, but there is no lesbian tag?
Did you just forget the tag or is Meissa a guy?

Meissa is the non-binary option. They're not available in this demo, hence why the tag isn't there.

 

[Virulenz]

Thx, then i'll wait for it...cant play hetero female protagonists ^^

 

[Nurumimi]

Made Marion?
Surely you mean Maid Marion?
I wouldn't normally comment like that on a misspelling/bad wording - but this is in the title..

She's a maiden (by the mores of the time anyways) - so she's "Maid Marion"

Maybe she "made" herself into twat?? ^^

GREAT ART, hope some surprises not tagged yet

 

[Walter Victor]

The writing for this game is about as good as it gets, and the artwork is captivating.

I do have one complaint: the save/load system. It is difficult to tell which page one is on. Only a slight color change in the page number tells what page it is. Once you gets past page 9, it is impossible to tell where you are. On top of that, there is no way to label the pages, as there is in almost every other Ren'Py game, and no labeling of saves. For a game that would seem to require multiple playthroughs, this is an impossible situation. Try coming back to this game after several months and try to figure which save was for which love interest, which for Sherwood, which for Nottingham, etc. Good luck.

 

[speedturtle]

The art is wicked! Can't wait to see the development!!

 

[Rhaegar Targaryen]

so is it abandoned?

 

[blasterexile]

A news on his Patreon. Someone may share it?