VN Ren'Py Abandoned Neuvau [v1.06.01] [Asmodeus_]

[Asmodeus_]

I actually really liked MMC and was pretty excited to check this one out. After finally getting a chance to do a proper playthrough of what's available, the only frustration/criticism I have is, that even after taking the early stage of development into consideration, I still found the MC to be pretty frustratingly underdeveloped and one dimensional. Despite already being subjected to a few pretty spicy encounters, we still don't really know anything about what makes him tick.

I didn't outright dislike the character or hate that he's outwardly shy and kind of socially awkward. That's actually pretty fertile ground for some interesting and complex character development. But if you're going for a shy introvert, I think you really need to lean into that inner/outer self duality and make certain that the reader is privy to their thought process for character development, especially early on.

I think a bit more meaningful, revealing inner dialogue triggered by some of the choices we make when we interact with the point system would have gone a long way towards fleshing out the character and forming some organic connective tissue between the point system it's self and the developing narrative. As is, the point system is doing most of the heavy lifting here. Choices didn't feel very impactful because the MC didn't seem to have any real feelings about any of it beyond very base emotions that just basically mirrored his spoken dialogue. I never really had any meaningful access to his headspace. Subsequently, it all felt sort of mechanical and sterile to me.

None of this is to say that I hate this game. That's not the case at all! I actually think it has a pretty solid foundation with loads of potential. I just feel like our shy guy needs to open up his headspace to us a little bit and let us see his personality. I'm not saying he should have a revelatory epiphany at every turn. We've all played games that over-share and dump page after page after page of exposition through inner dialogue. It's easy to over do it. I'd just like to feel a bit more connected to our tour guide.

I really do wish you all the best Asmodeus!

Sorry for the delay in my reply, but I wanted to take my time in replying.

That is great feedback, and thank you for taking the time to write this! I really appreciate it!

You’re right on the point that we don’t get enough of the MC’s inner workings. This is mostly because the player needs to fill this inner dialogue for himself. At least that was the idea, and that’s why the many choices. So that the player can feel on his own.

But let me expand on that. We have two kinds of narrative in games (i’m not referring only to adult games); one is the japanese/eastern style, and the other one is the western style. Of course there are many exceptions but I’m just distinguishing them this way to have some frame of reference.

In eastern style games the MC is always well defined and he has his own thinking and inner dialogue. You as the player just read his/her story and his/her mindset and either accept it or observe it as a 3rd person.

In western style games the MC is kind of a husk that the player will fill with his gameplay and choices. If there’s a backstory that would build the character background, it’s usually something common that would be acceptable by most.

You can understand now the difference.

On the eastern style games you get a MC that can be edgy, weird, different and gives a unique perspective to the world (think of almost all anime characters). You can see that in most JRPGs. Of course western games have adopted that style too. Think the uncharted series (but these games are like movies).

On the other hand western style games get a generic MC that is usually common to match most players. Doesn’t often offer some new perspective and the plot is left to the player to fill in and usually is driven by the other characters. Think Half-Life 1&2 (MC never speaks), Assassins Creed, Mass Effect, Skyrim. In these games you create the protagonist.

In this game, I think now it’s obvious that I’m going for a western approach. That’s why MC is so generic. He indeed has a rich background, but it wont be revealed soon. There are hints here and there, but he’s not the focus. For now I’m focusing mainly on the story and other characters (the girls).

You made a great point though, and I’ll work on it for future releases.

 

[Asmodeus_]

Chapter 4 Weekly Progress Update



Hey everyone! First of all this is a teaser from Chapter 4! The setup for the whole scene took me a lot to prepare, and of course I'm sharing the most spoiler-free of all the renders

The coding/development for this chapter is done for now (I'm trying to stop myself from over-engineering too much). Also the plot/scripting is finalized in about 6K words, but there might be some edits as rendering is progressively completing. No major changes expected on these two fronts.

Now, on the rendering, there's hard work ahead. I wasn't happy with the model for Tina, so I've done some rework on her (I won't reveal for now, just to tease you). Nothing too radical, but now I can fall in love with her! Because of that change I had to re-render a small part of CH1. That part is done.

For CH4, I've estimated about 110 renders for CH4 in total. Until now I've prepared about 30 renders. That means about 80 renders remaining, but in these remaining renders there some "stuff" that are new to me (not saying what to avoid spoilers ofc). I'm sure I'll get them somehow, but I'm not sure about the timeline.

The ideal would be to release on Fri 1-Apr, but it might take me a week longer to be safe (that means Fri 8-Apr). I'm optimistic, but I'll update you next week on that.

 

[J0K3RXXX]

Interesting.

 

[Elucidus]

Good vn with rare fetish to boot (mild femdom) and extremely rare type of protagonist (shy cherry boy). Scenes of seduction and sexual tension by women is what I want to see in vns more often. I really appreciate it. Still, the game has its flaws I want to complain about:
1) it's too fast-paced and chapters are too short. The reader is rewarded with sex scenes too early and too easily - meaning motivation to read further can disappear for some people and the whole vn perceived as having somewhat cheap quality. I am not implying I want tons of nonrelated infodumping which mars so many potentially good eroges there - or many hours blueballing. Not at all - on the contrary, all that infinite relationship problems and artificial drama of characters you don't care about is number one flaw of many eroges. They should focus on erotic situations first of all - it's what people read them for. Period. That said, build-up and exposition before such scenes should be written preperly to make them impactful - and there was severe lack of it.
2) the second flaw is derivative of the first. Given how little time reader has to acquaint himself with girls and how easy they give them their body - the story becomes too unbelievable and all girls seems extremely slutty, raving to fuck protagonist after first glance without any pretext. Which turns them into templates rather than characters. That, and shy behavior is natural turn off for all women - and their positive reaction to it seems very unnatural as well. It's not always true if the shy boy is very attractive visually AND they knew him for some time. But it doen't work like that with strangers. On the contrary, such behavior is often leads to contempt and ridicule - and given femdom genre - isn't it exactly what is required? Nevertheless, even if we consider protagonist as being all women dream come true by default - woman, even slutty ones - are usually not THAT easy. At first they would try to seduce their target more gradually, by more known means - i.e. clothes, poses, talks, behavior etc. And only after they see it doesn't work (or they are drunk) - they would try to do something more extreme.

All in all, I still like the direction this vn is going and I advice to take my criticism as grumbling of a nerd who is rabid fan of more realistic approach to storytelling and characters. You have every right to ignore it since being unrealistic can be your exact goal after all (which can be exactly what many other readers except me wants as well). You can't please everyone - there always will be naysayers, that's for sure.

 

[Asmodeus_]

Good vn with rare fetish to boot (mild femdom) and extremely rare type of protagonist (shy cherry boy). Scenes of seduction and sexual tension by women is what I want to see in vns more often. I really appreciate it. Still, the game has its flaws I want to complain about:
1) it's too fast-paced and chapters are too short. The reader is rewarded with sex scenes too early and too easily - meaning motivation to read further can disappear for some people and the whole vn perceived as having somehat cheap quality. I am not implying I want tons of nonrelated infodumping which mars so many potentially good eroges there - or many hours blueballing. Not at all - on the contrary, all that infinite relationship problems and artificial drama of characters you don't care about is number one flaw of many eroges. They should focus on erotic situations first of all - it's what people read them for. Period. That said, build-up and exposition before such scenes should be written preperly to make them impactful - and there was severe lack of it.
2) the second flaw is derivative of the first. Given how little time reader has to acquaint himself with girls and how easy they give them their body - the story becomes too unbelievable and all girls seems extremely slutty, raving to fuck protagonist after first glance without any pretext. Which turns them into templates rather than characters. That, and shy behavior is natural turn off for all women - and their positive reaction to it seems very unnatural as well. It's not always true if the shy boy is very attractive visually AND they knew him for some time. But it doen't work like that with strangers. On the contrary, such behavior is often leads to contempt and ridicule - and given femdom genre - isn't it exactly what is required? Nevertheless, even if we consider protagonist as being all women dream come true by default - woman, even slutty ones - are usually not THAT easy. At first they would try to seduce their target more gradually, by more known means - i.e. clothes, poses, talks, behavior etc. And only after they see it doesn't work (or they are drunk) - they would try to do something more extreme.

All in all, I still like the direction this vn is going and I advice to take my criticism as grumbling of a nerd who is rabid fan of more realistic approach to storytelling and characters. You have every right to ignore it since being unrealistic can be your exact goal after all (which can be exactly what many other readers except me wants as well). You can't please everyone - there always will be naysayers, that's for sure.

Thank you for taking the time to share this! I really appreciate it! This is a very detailed review!

I agree that if this was a traditional novel (a book) there would be more space for exposition and that would be expected. But the medium of visual novels doesn’t allow for much text before you lose the player.

Even though as a writer I appreciate good writing, as a player I avoid games that have too much text to read (there are a few visual novels that come to mind). As a player I want to have fun and see naughty stuff, not read myself to oblivion. So there’s a fine line I’m trying to find as a creator.

My target render/text ratio is about 3-6 short sentences per render image. If I want to give more dialog, I have to add more renders. Also, I want each scene to advance the story. That means that if it’s not relevant to the main story and doesn’t develop the characters, it’s out. Of course the content is condensed to include as much naughty stuff as possible (but that’s a given)

I’m always trying to be subtle with the background of the characters and the story. That means that for each 10 lines of dialog, there are other 50 lines that haven’t been written, but are implied or hinted. For me as a writer the story is clear, but to the player it is revealed step-by-step. It goes to the player to try and figure out what’s going on, IF they want to do it

Indeed we have seen so far a few girls that are interested in the MC. Indeed that’s unusual. The MC also notes in the game that this is unbelievable (meaning that the story recognizes the unusual events). That means that there might be some other explanation that will be given as the story progresses

 

[Asmodeus_]

Good vn with rare fetish to boot (mild femdom) and extremely rare type of protagonist (shy cherry boy). Scenes of seduction and sexual tension by women is what I want to see in vns more often. I really appreciate it. Still, the game has its flaws I want to complain about:
1) it's too fast-paced and chapters are too short. The reader is rewarded with sex scenes too early and too easily - meaning motivation to read further can disappear for some people and the whole vn perceived as having somehat cheap quality. I am not implying I want tons of nonrelated infodumping which mars so many potentially good eroges there - or many hours blueballing. Not at all - on the contrary, all that infinite relationship problems and artificial drama of characters you don't care about is number one flaw of many eroges. They should focus on erotic situations first of all - it's what people read them for. Period. That said, build-up and exposition before such scenes should be written preperly to make them impactful - and there was severe lack of it.
2) the second flaw is derivative of the first. Given how little time reader has to acquaint himself with girls and how easy they give them their body - the story becomes too unbelievable and all girls seems extremely slutty, raving to fuck protagonist after first glance without any pretext. Which turns them into templates rather than characters. That, and shy behavior is natural turn off for all women - and their positive reaction to it seems very unnatural as well. It's not always true if the shy boy is very attractive visually AND they knew him for some time. But it doen't work like that with strangers. On the contrary, such behavior is often leads to contempt and ridicule - and given femdom genre - isn't it exactly what is required? Nevertheless, even if we consider protagonist as being all women dream come true by default - woman, even slutty ones - are usually not THAT easy. At first they would try to seduce their target more gradually, by more known means - i.e. clothes, poses, talks, behavior etc. And only after they see it doesn't work (or they are drunk) - they would try to do something more extreme.

All in all, I still like the direction this vn is going and I advice to take my criticism as grumbling of a nerd who is rabid fan of more realistic approach to storytelling and characters. You have every right to ignore it since being unrealistic can be your exact goal after all (which can be exactly what many other readers except me wants as well). You can't please everyone - there always will be naysayers, that's for sure.

The other thing I wanted to discuss is the shy thing. A shy character can be endearing to some women. I agree not all women go for that, but they exist and are more than what most would expect. But that requires for the shy person to be out there in the world somehow (not on the internet, and not on his own). So, it only happens if the shy person is in a social environment (work, school etc.).

I’m a naturally shy person IRL, and I’ve experienced my fair share of women that not only are interested, but are initiating conversations and try to chat you up. The thing with shy people is that they are less threatening, so that the girls even though you’re a stranger, they feel more relaxed. In all cases, this is a game, not a biography. There are some real parts included in this story and (I hope) this makes the story more believable.

My philosophy is that people have a mix of feminine and masculine energies (ying/yang, active/passive) and the opposites attract each other. If you have a person that’s too masculine/active he’s going to attract the highly feminine/passive people; and the opposite is also true. Most people are not all masculine or all feminine. They have a mix in energies. And that is genderless.

So if you’re a guy that exhibits feminine qualities, you’re going to match well with people that are more masculine. If you’re more masculine, you’re going to attract more feminine people (again regardless of gender).

And that’s the premise in this VN. The MC is a shy guy and an introvert, but that’s only implied and shown by his reactions and player choices. That character is enabled by nature to attract more dominant women. BUT if the player plays as a dominant person, he will attract the more feminine women and have conflict with the dominant women

Now, on the humiliation aspect, I don’t think that’s equating to femdom. If we analyze domination, it’s all about control. Maledom is the man having control, femdom is the woman having control. That’s the premise of this game; femdom. Women in control. Control can be physical, verbal, financial, whatever.

When we’re talking about humiliation, then we’re going to BDSM territory. Here you have a sadist (that loves inflicting pain) and a masochist (that loves experiencing pain). Humiliation, degrading, demeaning are forms of emotional pain, as opposed to physical pain. But they’re not equal to femdom, it’s just that most porn videos combine these together.

There’s a range of female dominance and that’s what I’m trying to do with all those characters. Some are more passive, some more dominant, and each one has their own flavor of kinks that they like. But that’s to be discovered

 

[Asmodeus_]

Chapter 4 Weekly Progress Update



Hey everyone! Here's another spoiler free teaser from Chapter 4!

First of all, rendering is luckily progressing perfectly. I've completed 63 renders out of 94 total. I've also managed to resolve successfully those tricky parts, so no delays expected. If everything proceeds as I want it (and why wouldn't it), this update might come before 1-Apr.

I've also done some 2D artwork to display the relationship stats with the Love Interests.



Here's a screenshot to illustrate what's coming with next update. The first button (person icon) shows the character stats, and the second button (heart icon) shows the relationship stats.

I've also done some coding to display the Love Interest relationships and their names appear as the MC meets them. In the above screenshot, MC has met "Mrs Jones" and "Tina". He has also met another Love Interest "???", but doesn't yet know her name. Nice, huh?

For writing, I've added a few more stuff here and there and now in CH4 we're at about 7K words. This was done as I was finalizing the accurate renders and to match with the images shown. I'm not expecting to add anything further on that front, so that's done.

In the next week, I plan to finish with the renders and maybe improve the quality on some of the older renders. I'm continuously improving and I start to notice all those things that I could've done better. I promise thought not to overdo it

I'm also working on a way to show a summary of all the scenes for each Love Interest. The purpose is to help the player to know which scenes they haven't seen yet and how to unlock them. I'm not sure if this will be finalized in this update, but while I'm rendering (and waiting) I develop this system.

 

[Asmodeus_]

Hey everyone! Good news! Chapter 4 is done!
Don't forget to give me feedback if you have any!
Enjoy!

 

[WastedTalent]

Hey everyone! Good news! Chapter 4 is done!
Don't forget to give me feedback if you have any!
Enjoy!

Ok so you addressed the concerns about fem dom which I have 0 interest in but some sub females sound good however when a scene opportunity comes up if we deny the femdom at the beginning we can't do anything because we don't have the exp at the next opportunity. I would suggest switiching it up without points and give the player a choice to dom them instead or go the sub route as it's already written. Locking it to where there's only one route in the early stages is setting the stage for loss of interest. Make a vn instead with no points and give the player a choice for the scene and how it's going to play out. Instead of no scene unless you submit or no scene if you haven't previously submitted. Or offer an alternate scene to where we don't have to submit because a different or better opportunity comes up. So we can get the exp and move forward with a different path.

 

[Zavijava_]

My only critique so far (I'll fave fun submitting to your lovely waifus tonight): Anonfile is slow as balls! Any chance you could put up links on MEGA or something else?

 

[Rinbael]

I saw this game and decided to try it since the renders looked so good but I'm confused about the note in the op about femdom which makes it seem like it is going to be forced in some scenes but from what I have played it seems to be completely avoidable which I really like.

Hopefully I can focus on Mrs Jones and avoid any other characters, though I feel guilty since her husband is supposed to be such a great guy.

I agree with what WastedTalent said though it seems like people like myself who reject that first scene are going to end up shooting themselves in the foot right from the start and lock themselves into one route.

I'm just curious though will the MC eventually stop his stuttering if you pick more dom choices. It was kind of driving me insane while playing or is he just going to be stuck with it for the whole game.

 

[FAP369ZONE]

[VN] [Ren'Py] Neuvau [v1.04.01] [Asmodeus_] [OS@1.27GB, HQ, MyRepack-YAC]

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[Asmodeus_]

Ok so you addressed the concerns about fem dom which I have 0 interest in but some sub females sound good however when a scene opportunity comes up if we deny the femdom at the beginning we can't do anything because we don't have the exp at the next opportunity. I would suggest switiching it up without points and give the player a choice to dom them instead or go the sub route as it's already written. Locking it to where there's only one route in the early stages is setting the stage for loss of interest. Make a vn instead with no points and give the player a choice for the scene and how it's going to play out. Instead of no scene unless you submit or no scene if you haven't previously submitted. Or offer an alternate scene to where we don't have to submit because a different or better opportunity comes up. So we can get the exp and move forward with a different path.

First of all thank you for sharing this! I really appreciate it!

And yeah! You’re absolutely right on that. As it is currently, you have to do at least one of the two starting scenes to keep yourself in the game.

Keep in mind that since this is a femdom game, so even if you avoid them, these “girls” will come back. They’re part of the main plot. So either you deal with them, or avoid them and lose some scenes. That’s the tradeoff. The intention is for these scenes to be equally balanced as more content gets added.

If femdom isn’t your thing, then this game isn’t your type. And think about it. This is a femdom game and you say you have 0 interest in it. It’s like going to a pizza place ordering a pepperoni pizza, and then removing the pepperonis because you don’t like them.

I hope you enjoy the game either way, but I’m not planning to make the player avoid the central plot. Sooner or later you’ll have to deal with them. Next update, Chapter 5, will make that very clear.

 

[Asmodeus_]

My only critique so far (I'll fave fun submitting to your lovely waifus tonight): Anonfile is slow as balls! Any chance you could put up links on MEGA or something else?

I’ll try that on the next update!

 

[Asmodeus_]

I saw this game and decided to try it since the renders looked so good but I'm confused about the note in the op about femdom which makes it seem like it is going to be forced in some scenes but from what I have played it seems to be completely avoidable which I really like.

Hopefully I can focus on Mrs Jones and avoid any other characters, though I feel guilty since her husband is supposed to be such a great guy.

I agree with what WastedTalent said though it seems like people like myself who reject that first scene are going to end up shooting themselves in the foot right from the start and lock themselves into one route.

I'm just curious though will the MC eventually stop his stuttering if you pick more dom choices. It was kind of driving me insane while playing or is he just going to be stuck with it for the whole game.

Thank you for sharing this! I really appreciate it!

Yeah, you’re right about that. So far it’s just the intro and meeting the characters. It’s the “setup”, or the “hook”. As the chapters will keep coming up, you’ll encounter those ladies again and again. It’s part of the main plot.

What I’ll promise is to have a path that you don’t have to be a sub to them, but you won’t avoid interacting with them. That’s for sure. The rest of the characters will still remain at play regardless of the main plot, so everything is possible with them.

And yes, there is probably some point where he will lose that stutter, but don’t forget Ch1-4 are a timespan of 4 days. No one gets over their stutter in 4 days. It takes time. Later in the story you’ll find out why

 

[GeppettoPossum]

I hope I'm not the only one who saw the resemblance

 

[Rinbael]

Thank you for sharing this! I really appreciate it!

Yeah, you’re right about that. So far it’s just the intro and meeting the characters. It’s the “setup”, or the “hook”. As the chapters will keep coming up, you’ll encounter those ladies again and again. It’s part of the main plot.

What I’ll promise is to have a path that you don’t have to be a sub to them, but you won’t avoid interacting with them. That’s for sure. The rest of the characters will still remain at play regardless of the main plot, so everything is possible with them.

And yes, there is probably some point where he will lose that stutter, but don’t forget Ch1-4 are a timespan of 4 days. No one gets over their stutter in 4 days. It takes time. Later in the story you’ll find out why

That's why I was confused. I read through the whole thread and it seemed like the first few scenes where the MC needed his phone had unavoidable femdom and was required for the main plot but it seems like you changed it and it's now completely avoidable.

I know I'm not the main audience for the game but I will be happy as long as I can avoid being a sub to them. I'm fine with interacting with them since most of my amusement from this game is standing up to all the characters that try to dom the MC.

I especially loved the scene with Skylar since she is trying to trick the MC into something and is talking about how her mistress is going to punish her if she doesn't complete the task and the MC can just be like:

 

[Asmodeus_]

I hope I'm not the only one who saw the resemblance
View attachment 1722660

I have no idea who the left character is! I'm very curious to know!

 

[Asmodeus_]

That's why I was confused. I read through the whole thread and it seemed like the first few scenes where the MC needed his phone had unavoidable femdom and was required for the main plot but it seems like you changed it and it's now completely avoidable.

I know I'm not the main audience for the game but I will be happy as long as I can avoid being a sub to them. I'm fine with interacting with them since most of my amusement from this game is standing up to all the characters that try to dom the MC.

I especially loved the scene with Skylar since she is trying to trick the MC into something and is talking about how her mistress is going to punish her if she doesn't complete the task and the MC can just be like:

View attachment 1722676

Hahahah, I love that meme!
Indeed, I'm trying to put more options to the player. Thank you for saying that! It means a lot!

And yeah. On their first release Ch1 and Ch2 the femdom scenes were un-avoidable. But what people had voiced made perfect sense to me, so I sat down and thought of an alternate plotline (it will be seen in the next chapter, CH5) to make these scenes avoidable. Don't forget that I'm still learning as I go, and all feedback is highly valuable for me.

And to explain a bit further, even though I'm a seasoned erotic writer, making a game with multiple choices and paths, it's like trying to write 6 novels at the same time. 6 novels with the same love interests and situations, but in each one the main character is a slightly different person. And you can't write this shit in a simple "word document", you need to constantly keep in mind all the previous choices of the player and his motivation, AND how the love interests would react to the MC. It's like playing 3D chess in parallel universes

 

[Rinbael]

And to explain a bit further, even though I'm a seasoned erotic writer, making a game with multiple choices and paths, it's like trying to write 6 novels at the same time. 6 novels with the same love interests and situations, but in each one the main character is a slightly different person. And you can't write this shit in a simple "word document", you need to constantly keep in mind all the previous choices of the player and his motivation, AND how the love interests would react to the MC. It's like playing 3D chess in parallel universes

I have a lot of respect for you for giving players choices. You could have easily just said that it's a femdom focused game and made it unavoidable since it would be easier for you to manage. Instead you decided to give yourself much more work and gave players choices to avoid it.

I know players like myself who aren't into femdom are the minority audience for this game but I appreciate you giving us choices to avoid being a sub. Especially since it's probably a whole lot of work for you to do for not much pay off since most of your audience are into the femdom scenes and probably won't even bother with going for the male dom route anyway.