VN Ren'Py Naked Ambition [v0.82] [Apollo Seven]

[RhapsodicHotShot]

What do people think of this new system?

If I was you, I would have 2 modes for this game.

First, the current card mode and the ability to influence the Princesses decisions.

Second, would be the "renpy" mode: There are no cards and the MC is the Princess instead of the friend. Choices are gated behind stats (example: for the inquisitor you need faith to pick the good decisions that will raise his approval), and choices that were done automatically by the princess, because of the cards, will now be completely under our control.

The second mode is for those who dont like card games and the randomness, like me. Although I did manage to go down the path I wanted, it took a few retries, which was a waste of time.

 

[Arisushi]

Since I haven't been able to work on this game lately, I've been able to take a step back and think about it. I think the game's biggest issue is that while the design accomplishes my goals as a game, it's not a very good porn delivery mechanism. I've known from the start that deliberately taking away agency and porn is a really bad combination, but it was the game I wanted to make so I went for it.

But now that I've had time to think about it, the obvious solution is to decouple the porn elements from the card gameplay. It does a good job of modeling what the Princess does in a meeting with Gales, but that system doesn't have to be pervasive over the whole game. So what I was thinking is to change how the pink card system works. Instead of it being a gateway into sex scenes, sex scenes will be determined by a more general corruption stat.

Instead of having to hope you get random event x and then draw color y, that sex scene is instead gated by corruption level instead. Pink cards will still exist, but they'll be as sort of dud cards you get in exchange for increasing the Princess's corruption level. Most pink checks will be replaced by corruption checks. And for trainers they're events will progress via corruption as well. So most sequences of events will stay the game, but the Princess will need the PCs help getting a little nudge in a sexual direction before she lets the Vizier or Ulric have their way with her. After that they'll do their thing raising her corruption level on their own.

What do people think of this new system? Does it solve the issues with the porn aspects? Is it too drastic a change? Let me know what you think.

Sounds like a pretty good plan. It would definitely make the game more accessible to be more players.

---

But to play the devil's advocate, I've always felt that the difficulty was one of the biggest charms of your game.

There was a joy in fumbling through the initial two or three playthroughs, trying to figure out what's what.

And once everything became clear, it was not that hard to unlock the scenes you want.

And the sense of accomplishment was pretty high (more than all the other ero-games I've played)

So, I'm a little worried that the devaluing of the pink cards might take away that larger experience.

---

That being said, I do understand this is a pretty uncommon opinion.

For an erotic game to sell well, the erotic aspects of it should be accessible.

So, just as long as the new corruption system doesn't completely remove the sense of challenge, I think it'll be the perfect way to do what you need.

 

[quiboune]

I think the non-porn story telling part of the game works perfectly well. I'm not changing any of that. Your suggestion is basically "make a different game". I like the current game, I just think it's bad at delivering porn.

It is a lottery at best. If that part is still going to be random making the porn delivery consistent will make the game always result in a single story of "princess is trained and becomes lewd", when you could have heavier or softer versions. Might as well not change anything and own the randomness aspect.

 

[manscout]

Since I haven't been able to work on this game lately, I've been able to take a step back and think about it. I think the game's biggest issue is that while the design accomplishes my goals as a game, it's not a very good porn delivery mechanism. I've known from the start that deliberately taking away agency and porn is a really bad combination, but it was the game I wanted to make so I went for it.

But now that I've had time to think about it, the obvious solution is to decouple the porn elements from the card gameplay. It does a good job of modeling what the Princess does in a meeting with Gales, but that system doesn't have to be pervasive over the whole game. So what I was thinking is to change how the pink card system works. Instead of it being a gateway into sex scenes, sex scenes will be determined by a more general corruption stat.

Instead of having to hope you get random event x and then draw color y, that sex scene is instead gated by corruption level instead. Pink cards will still exist, but they'll be as sort of dud cards you get in exchange for increasing the Princess's corruption level. Most pink checks will be replaced by corruption checks. And for trainers they're events will progress via corruption as well. So most sequences of events will stay the game, but the Princess will need the PCs help getting a little nudge in a sexual direction before she lets the Vizier or Ulric have their way with her. After that they'll do their thing raising her corruption level on their own.

What do people think of this new system? Does it solve the issues with the porn aspects? Is it too drastic a change? Let me know what you think.

I like the idea of removing RNG elements that don't serve any purpose other than gate the porn scenes, but I don't know if it will make that much of a difference for most of the scenes.

Outside of the random weekend event scenes (which admitedly are very annoying to miss due to not drawing pink cards), I don't think pink card RNG is a problem for people that have played the game more than once, the issue with the RNG has always been something created by the players themselves when they greedily try to reach for too many goals at once. I don't think anyone struggles to progress the Vizier's or Ulric's routes when they are duly focused on those, and removing pink card checks won't really affect councillor routes either (I think most of those currently don't even use pink cards for anything?).

The issue to me is more that the goal presented to the player has always been a challenging one, winning the election requires that the player pays attention to at least 4 councillors, essentially giving the player 4 goals at the very least (a greedy player might even unwisely try to impress all councillors), this is all incredibly overwhelming in a first playthrough where the player might feel like they are just uselessly flailing around without accomplishing anything, and unfortunately the first run is also the longest one because the player is busy reading everything for the first time.

While I agree making sure the player can get more porn without the risk of missing it would help with making a new player less frustrated at a "bad first run", I think a more interesting solution would be to present the romantic routes as a goal in themselves and present actually winning the election as being a "greedy goal" (I believe you have said in the past that there will be good endings where the princess doesn't win the election, but currently the player has no reason to think that would be the case). I don't know exactly what that could look like, maybe marrying a councillor could be presented as a way of Collette being politically protected in the future or something, but it would be a way of reducing the number of goals a new player needs to focus on and reduce the odds of them getting too screwed by RNG while they are first learning the game.

Also what if instead of creating a new "corruption system" to handle porn scenes, instead you changed how pink cards are used so that they don't need to be drawn, the player only needs to have them and they get consumed to pass the "porn scene check"? There would still be an element of deck management since you'd want to keep a few of them in your deck to not miss the porn scenes, but you wouldn't want too many of them so they don't bloat your deck, it wouldn't even be a big deal lorewise for the pink cards to have unique behavior since they are not one of the "real" signs anyway.

 

[Apollo Seven]

But to play the devil's advocate, I've always felt that the difficulty was one of the biggest charms of your game.

There was a joy in fumbling through the initial two or three playthroughs, trying to figure out what's what.

And once everything became clear, it was not that hard to unlock the scenes you want.

And the sense of accomplishment was pretty high (more than all the other ero-games I've played)

So, I'm a little worried that the devaluing of the pink cards might take away that larger experience.

It will make unlocking sex scenes a lot more consistent, but the rest of the game will have the same challenge. So base line stuff will be easier, but getting to the scenes involving council members by getting on their route should still provide that sense of accomplishment.

The issue to me is more that the goal presented to the player has always been a challenging one, winning the election requires that the player pays attention to at least 4 councillors, essentially giving the player 4 goals at the very least (a greedy player might even unwisely try to impress all councillors), this is all incredibly overwhelming in a first playthrough where the player might feel like they are just uselessly flailing around without accomplishing anything, and unfortunately the first run is also the longest one because the player is busy reading everything for the first time.

While I agree making sure the player can get more porn without the risk of missing it would help with making a new player less frustrated at a "bad first run", I think a more interesting solution would be to present the romantic routes as a goal in themselves and present actually winning the election as being a "greedy goal" (I believe you have said in the past that there will be good endings where the princess doesn't win the election, but currently the player has no reason to think that would be the case). I don't know exactly what that could look like, maybe marrying a councillor could be presented as a way of Collette being politically protected in the future or something, but it would be a way of reducing the number of goals a new player needs to focus on and reduce the odds of them getting too screwed by RNG while they are first learning the game.

I agree that there is a bit of a presentation problem. The game is a lot less hardcore than it first appears, it's just hard to get SPECIFIC outcome,s getting a generally positive one shouldn't be difficult. That's why I say at the beginning that the Princess dying is the only actual failure state. Everything else is just a different path her life took.

Also what if instead of creating a new "corruption system" to handle porn scenes, instead you changed how pink cards are used so that they don't need to be drawn, the player only needs to have them and they get consumed to pass the "porn scene check"? There would still be an element of deck management since you'd want to keep a few of them in your deck to not miss the porn scenes, but you wouldn't want too many of them so they don't bloat your deck, it wouldn't even be a big deal lorewise for the pink cards to have unique behavior since they are not one of the "real" signs anyway.

This could work too, but the corruption system has the side benefit of making random event sex scenes more contextually sensical. It always was kind of odd the Princess could be rejecting somebody for groping her in one scene then dropping to her knees and sucking dick in the next. This way, once the Princess feels comfortable doing an action, she'lll keep doing it. And if she's not, she won't. It's a lot more consistent. The new system still has deck management in that you need to keep doing pink choices to get the Princess's corruption up, which means you have to remove the pink cards and figure out what's the best weeks to not add other ones, etc.

 

[manscout]

This could work too, but the corruption system has the side benefit of making random event sex scenes more contextually sensical. It always was kind of odd the Princess could be rejecting somebody for groping her in one scene then dropping to her knees and sucking dick in the next. This way, once the Princess feels comfortable doing an action, she'lll keep doing it. And if she's not, she won't. It's a lot more consistent. The new system still has deck management in that you need to keep doing pink choices to get the Princess's corruption up, which means you have to remove the pink cards and figure out what's the best weeks to not add other ones, etc.

What can I say, the Princess can be a really moody one. I would watch for weird dependencies though, making so pink choices increase Collette's corruption will mean that increasing her "Love" stat will be really difficult without incidentally moving her along one of the "corrupt" routes.

 

[shadow415]

It will make unlocking sex scenes a lot more consistent, but the rest of the game will have the same challenge. So base line stuff will be easier, but getting to the scenes involving council members by getting on their route should still provide that sense of accomplishment.

I think thats a good idea and will make me engage and play with the actual game more. Right now I just stack my deck with pink cards so I don't miss out on any of the scenes.

 

[anarchy12]

Anyone know if there is any planned transformations similar to the stuff in TF Card Battle?

 

[Apollo Seven]

Anyone know if there is any planned transformations similar to the stuff in TF Card Battle?

The game already has TF content on the Cecily route. There's the Princess turning into a futa, Adelin turning into a girl, and more planned for the endgame in the future.

 

[KuraScropia]

That's good, but I wonder: couldn't you use sexual reputation instead of a corruption system? That's another new statistic you need to keep track of when coding.

I bloat my deck with pink cards solely to hunt for the porn. I think it would be a different story if pink cards are actually vital to alternate endings (i'm under the impression they aren't and are only used for porn) and if so then it would make sense to gate to a statistic than a card check.

A heirloom idea would be unlocking dual cards from the very beginning, but that's probably going to be some type of ending finish.

So far, I'm on board with the change. And while we're talking about the porn, I am wondering if you'll be editing the gallery so that it can show the cumshot animations as well.

 

[Apollo Seven]

That's good, but I wonder: couldn't you use sexual reputation instead of a corruption system? That's another new statistic you need to keep track of when coding.

I bloat my deck with pink cards solely to hunt for the porn. I think it would be a different story if pink cards are actually vital to alternate endings (i'm under the impression they aren't and are only used for porn) and if so then it would make sense to gate to a statistic than a card check.

A heirloom idea would be unlocking dual cards from the very beginning, but that's probably going to be some type of ending finish.

So far, I'm on board with the change. And while we're talking about the porn, I am wondering if you'll be editing the gallery so that it can show the cumshot animations as well.

Sexual reputation represents how big a slut other people think the Princess is. It's not necessarily tied to how much she actually likes sex. Those reputation stats are mostly important for the endings. So it doesn't really work for how much the Princess wants to suck dick.

As for the gallery, I plan on changing it to be full scenes and not just the pictures in the next update. So yeah, that will include cumshots.

 

[NotABot]

I like the current system personally; particularly how it makes the sex stuff ingratiated with the rest of the game. Though I'm always against reworking old content because its taking time that could be new content and usually loses something in the process, so I'm biased.

If people really just want the porn, maybe putting out a gallery save with each release works? Or a "porn mode" that lets you freely reroll for just the sexual card draws?

 

[YuriiH]

What do people think of this new system? Does it solve the issues with the porn aspects? Is it too drastic a change? Let me know what you think.

As a true hater of RNG in your card system, I can only say that the auto-events based on corruption levels would decrease the diversity of the Princess development. As far as I remember, you can specifically create and gather, e.g., Dominant cards, and the story unfolds (or is supposed to unfold) as if the Princess is dominant.
However, corruption level would need additional properties, such as dominance, exhibitionism, etc. In other words, you'll need to introduce multiple corruption sub-stats that may confuse the development.
In my opinion, it's better to give players more control over their decks if they want to read the story, or just watch the porn.

For example, give a player two modes at the game start: 'normal' or 'hardcore' (maybe even 'easy').
Hardcore implies current state of the game.
Normal allows a player to select 1-2 cards that will appear 101% in the deck during one week. (or NOT appear during one week).
Easy gives even more options (e.g. reload the results).
And then the player decides, whether it will be hardcore card game, general porn game, or easy fap-and-forget.

If you're too attached to your current gameplay, you may even hide something valuable behind the Hardcore mode, maybe even true endings, LOL.

(and later on, you'll be able to run a poll to find out what mode players like the most!)

 

[Apollo Seven]

As a true hater of RNG in your card system, I can only say that the auto-events based on corruption levels would decrease the diversity of the Princess development. As far as I remember, you can specifically create and gather, e.g., Dominant cards, and the story unfolds (or is supposed to unfold) as if the Princess is dominant.
However, corruption level would need additional properties, such as dominance, exhibitionism, etc. In other words, you'll need to introduce multiple corruption sub-stats that may confuse the development.

You've actually got it backwards. The corruption system allows for MORE diversity in the Princess's development. In the current system, the Princess who likes to flash her breasts and the Princess who likes to be gangbanged in an ally don't really have a way to be differentiated. They all just want pink cards. Now you can have a Princess who has limits in she'll do and you can keep those barriers much more easily. So if you want a flirt instead of a slut that's much easier to do. And things like dominant vs. submissive Princess aren't changing. It's still about drawing red cards and such. And that's a lot easier now because pink cards are out of the equation.

In fact the whole game is easier because you don't have to keep rogue pink cards around to get sex scenes. It basically makes your deck smaller for story checks. I've already implemented it and I think it's a good change, the whole system feels smoother and more sensical now.

 

[YuriiH]

I've already implemented it and I think it's a good change, the whole system feels smoother and more sensical now.

Looking forward to test it

 

[Ssato243]

me too

 

[CardinalPuma]

What do people think of this new system? Does it solve the issues with the porn aspects? Is it too drastic a change? Let me know what you think.

Seems good to me. I'm glad pink cards are staying, those situations where the princess is just too horny to achieve the goal you want are golden imo.
My only concern is that I've found explicit corruption stats in other games to be immersion breaking. I couldn't tell you why this is, especially when I have no problems with other stats, but in case you haven't already I would ask that you consider hiding this number from the player, or displaying it as a black rose that grows and blooms as you progress, something along those lines.

 

[GroupSession]

If I was you, I would have 2 modes for this game.

First, the current card mode and the ability to influence the Princesses decisions.

Second, would be the "renpy" mode: There are no cards and the MC is the Princess instead of the friend. Choices are gated behind stats (example: for the inquisitor you need faith to pick the good decisions that will raise his approval), and choices that were done automatically by the princess, because of the cards, will now be completely under our control.

The second mode is for those who dont like card games and the randomness, like me. Although I did manage to go down the path I wanted, it took a few retries, which was a waste of time.

VN fans are a pain in the ass

 

[Apollo Seven]

VN fans are a pain in the ass

Yeah, all the responses that are pretty much "I'd like the game better if you completely changed all of the gameplay to something else" are pretty funny. I'm not going to do that haha.

 

[YuriiH]

I'm not going to do that haha.

Not that I'm judging you, but you're missing potential players and supporters
On the other hand, with a bit of RenPy knowledge, your game can be easily turned into a VN as well (gimme 20 minutes and I'll move the world!!!). However, you know, it requires people to learn something — which is unlikely to happen…