VN Ren'Py Nothing Is Forever [v0.7.3] [MrSilverLust]

[rezaf]

Explore Jen's manly path and you might be surprised.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Like I wrote earlier, I don't even have a problem with the domination itself, I just feel the level Jen starts at is utterly over the top.

Lea seems to also be at a sharing trajectory, but it's imo far better paced.
Just my two cents, of course.

She will always be submissive though. If you consider that degrading by itself, I guess we have different definitions of what degradation play is.

Sure looks that way.
In my book, being submissive does not require having at least partially degrading things written all over your body. Why didn't carl have to do that on the sharing path? He gets reasonably submissive Jen while we players are stuck with this psycho. It ain't fair.

You can also end up in a path with Emma where you don't have to be dominant (hatefucking) or submissive with her. Granted, there aren't be any sex scenes there yet, but there is that option.

I saw that ... but if you can't have a single sex scene with a character that's supposedly one of the two main female protagonists in chapter 6, that's kind of an issue, wouldn't you agree?

 

[Samuel Hidayat]

I saw that ... but if you can't have a single sex scene with a character that's supposedly one of the two main female protagonists in chapter 6, that's kind of an issue, wouldn't you agree?

Emma and MC's whole dynamic is all about arguing and being contrarian because they like challenging another's PoV and knowledge, or just for shits and giggles. Through all of that senseless arguing, there's an underlying sexual tension that's begging to be unleashed.

Why would you think MC can be in a sexual and/or romantic relationship with Emma without some kind of power play?

 

[rezaf]

Why would you think MC can be in a sexual and/or romantic relationship with Emma without some kind of power play?

I don't know why y'all have to be so condescending, what have I done to you?

All I'm saying is that, as MrSilverLust put it, the game is not very vanilla friendly. The two main female protagonists are quite far down their particular rabbit holes - I'm not saying they ought to be different, just lamenting the fact that the female cast is more like members of the anonymous sexaholics. Nothing to be changed about this at this stage of development, obviously.

 

[Canto Forte]

You do not give your beloved to others for shaming them,
your jealousy is proof you need to stay away from it.

Do not go the sharing route, this is clearly not for you.
The mindset of you foresaking your beloved to get another woman
is proof you should never go sharing, because you loose the relationship feels and your sense of belonging.

Also, this game has unlock fetish point ... so just do not unlock the cuck or the sharing or any kinks you loathe.

IRL sharing/swinging is prepared with months if not years in advance.
You do it haphazardly, you cut emotions out, you are left with borderline rape left unreported.

FFS - even playboy had actual therapists prodd and ease the couples into swinging/sharing,
in a reality show where asshole guys were in it to steal and whores were in it to cheat,
you could see/hear/understand it a mile away.

 

[Iblis]

Im wondering since that post you guys quoted saying Kim/bri and olivia are more side ish characters and wont get as much as a spotlight. Im curious if we will get a fleshed out big segment of Kim's sub route in the next chapters

Spoiler

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[rezaf]

Do not go the sharing route, this is clearly not for you.

You still talking to me?

I think this is straying a bit off topic, so lets keep real life out of this and return to the game.

In that context, I liked for example Jens sharing route better than the degredation route.
I also like where Lea's plot seems to be heading.
As I wrote earlier, I don't self insert, so it's less (or not at all) a question of what I would want irl - these are just games - but rather a question of plausibility.

 

[MrSilverLust]

I saw that ... but if you can't have a single sex scene with a character that's supposedly one of the two main female protagonists in chapter 6, that's kind of an issue, wouldn't you agree?

Of course that's an issue. As are all the other things the game failed to provide. Every update there are these kind of requests/criticisms:

Why don't Emma and Jen have more vanilla kinks?
Why doesn't Deb have more scenes with a dominant MC? Why is she so stuck up into femdom?
Why can Jen be more into femdom?
Why is the MC not more dominant and take what it wants from any girl? What a doormat.
Why is the MC such a bad sub? He doesn't understand anything about femdom.
Why is the MC so creepy and pushover? I didn't like how the start of the relationship with Lea was handled.
Why do I have to keep being friends with Emma? I don't want to see her in the game anymore after chapter 1.
Why do I need to keep seeing Kim. She's a bitch and I don't like her.
Why is so much time spent on Lea? She's boring and not into femdom.
Why does Bri and Olivia have so little content? They are the best characters.
Why does the MC need to be a sub when sharing Jen? I like sharing, not being submissive.
Why are Bri scenes so vanilla? I like femdom/mendom, not that boring thing.
Why are this game's scenes so boring with no animations? I want animations.
Why is this another boring game with foursomes and bromance and shit? I what MFFFFF thressomes and foursomes and harem (alright, this one is from fapnation, it doesn't count xD).

All of these changes are totally reasonable, could be made to work, and wouldn't make the game any worse. Might even make some of it better/more plausible, etc.

It's just that, to do them, either would take more developing time, or I would have had to cut some of the content I did (and then people would have asked why that isn't in the game instead). I have limited time/resources... Believe me, no one gets more frustrated with the gap between what the game is. and what the game could be, than me. For every single thing that is chosen to be in the game, some compromise had to be made. And it saddens me that I can't make it.


So. At the start of the game, when the kink menu is shown for the first time, there are some promise the game makes to the players: All these kinks will be present one way or another. You'll only see them if you pick the relevant skills.

My main focus is to keep true to this promise. This is how I decide what compromises to make. But there are a million ways I could go about doing that. How do I chose just one of them?

Well, let's say there is a Venn diagram which has on one side: my vision of the game and all the possible ways of how the characters can go from point A to point B;
And on the other side of the diagram, we have: what the many possible players want to see in the game.

Throughout these 2 years of development I tried to get the common ground from this diagram. Reading comments, making polls on patreon, gathering feedback, etc.

Emma has always been consistently on the top 2 of favorite LIs of my patrons, regardless if they are in the sensitive or manly path. In this chapter poll, only 1% of 140 patron votes rejected any of her paths. So, I think I did a good job with the compromises I did with her, and got into the sweet spot of that venn diagram. Outside of patreon, this game still has a reasonable rating here, with 4.7 out of 100 and 114 reviews. Not too shabby. It seems to be doing something well for the audience it's aimed to.


But that doesn't mean that all possible players would be happy with the game. Of course it's impossible to please everyone. And that also doesn't mean everything was well done, is plausible, etc. Everyone has some fair complain about how some thing was handled. I've been taking all the feedback I can, but I'm only human: there will always be mistakes, poor decisions, things that failed the mark, etc.



WARNING: Little rant ahead:

Spoiler

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/rant over

This isn't to say to say you are wrong or make bad suggestions. Of course not. If you had come earlier in development, your voice would also have been part of the venn diagram. And, who knows, maybe things would have been slightly different. With hindsight, I do think it would have been better to have more vanilla friendly content. And when I decide to add that to option to Emma, the answer is "don't you think that's a problem that happens this late in the game and there are no vanilla sex scenes until now?" Well, what was the alternative, through everything in the bin and start from scratch?

Developing a game is just a huge compromise all the way down. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

BTW, I'm answering to you, but this is not an answer to just you. As stated at the start of the post, there's lots of these suggestions, you just need to go through the last pages after the latest release.

I've refrained from commenting about this lately, but why not give my perspective on this.

 

[Boehser Onkel]

Of course that's an issue. As are all the other things the game failed to provide. Every update there are these kind of requests/criticisms:

Why don't Emma and Jen have more vanilla kinks?
Why doesn't Deb have more scenes with a dominant MC? Why is she so stuck up into femdom?
Why can Jen be more into femdom?
Why is the MC not more dominant and take what it wants from any girl? What a doormat.
Why is the MC such a bad sub? He doesn't understand anything about femdom.
Why is the MC so creepy and pushover? I didn't like how the start of the relationship with Lea was handled.
Why do I have to keep being friends with Emma? I don't want to see her in the game anymore after chapter 1.
Why do I need to keep seeing Kim. She's a bitch and I don't like her.
Why is so much time spent on Lea? She's boring and not into femdom.
Why does Bri and Olivia have so little content? They are the best characters.
Why does the MC need to be a sub when sharing Jen? I like sharing, not being submissive.
Why are Bri scenes so vanilla? I like femdom/mendom, not that boring thing.
Why are this game's scenes so boring with no animations? I want animations.
Why is this another boring game with foursomes and bromance and shit? I what MFFFFF thressomes and foursomes and harem (alright, this one is from fapnation, it doesn't count xD).

All of these changes are totally reasonable, could be made to work, and wouldn't make the game any worse. Might even make some of it better/more plausible, etc.

It's just that, to do them, either would take more developing time, or I would have had to cut some of the content I did (and then people would have asked why that isn't in the game instead). I have limited time/resources... Believe me, no one gets more frustrated with the gap between what the game is. and what the game could be, than me. For every single thing that is chosen to be in the game, some compromise had to be made. And it saddens me that I can't make it.


So. At the start of the game, when the kink menu is shown for the first time, there are some promise the game makes to the players: All these kinks will be present one way or another. You'll only see them if you pick the relevant skills.

My main focus is to keep true to this promise. This is how I decide what compromises to make. But there are a million ways I could go about doing that. How do I chose just one of them?

Well, let's say there is a Venn diagram which has on one side: my vision of the game and all the possible ways of how the characters can go from point A to point B;
And on the other side of the diagram, we have: what the many possible players want to see in the game.

Throughout these 2 years of development I tried to get the common ground from this diagram. Reading comments, making polls on patreon, gathering feedback, etc.

Emma has always been consistently on the top 2 of favorite LIs of my patrons, regardless if they are in the sensitive or manly path. In this chapter poll, only 1% of 140 patron votes rejected any of her paths. So, I think I did a good job with the compromises I did with her, and got into the sweet spot of that venn diagram. Outside of patreon, this game still has a reasonable rating here, with 4.7 out of 100 and 114 reviews. Not too shabby. It seems to be doing something well for the audience it's aimed to.


But that doesn't mean that all possible players would be happy with the game. Of course it's impossible to please everyone. And that also doesn't mean everything was well done, is plausible, etc. Everyone has some fair complain about how some thing was handled. I've been taking all the feedback I can, but I'm only human: there will always be mistakes, poor decisions, things that failed the mark, etc.



WARNING: Little rant ahead:

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

/rant over

This isn't to say to say you are wrong or make bad suggestions. Of course not. If you had come earlier in development, your voice would also have been part of the venn diagram. And, who knows, maybe things would have been slightly different. With hindsight, I do think it would have been better to have more vanilla friendly content. And when I decide to add that to option to Emma, the answer is "don't you think that's a problem that happens this late in the game and there are no vanilla sex scenes until now?" Well, what was the alternative, through everything in the bin and start from scratch?

Developing a game is just a huge compromise all the way down. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

BTW, I'm answering to you, but this is not an answer to just you. As stated at the start of the post, there's lots of these suggestions, you just need to go through the last pages after the latest release.

I've refrained from commenting about this lately, but why not give my perspective on this.

amen



i like this post

 

[vree]

Mr Silverlust, you are an artist. Please stay true to your vision. No one else can bring into the world what you can. Artists are not supposed to please everyone, so don't. Just please yourself, and it will be good enough for the rest of us.

And to all those disappointed or criticizing, that is your cue to make your own art, and bring your vision into the world.

 

[Vleder]

I'm a long time patron of MrSilverLust.
I have my Itch key for quite some time now and I'm still supporting the development of the game. And I'll continue to do so until it's finished!
The thing is, being a patron, I never once asked for anything to be added or changed to the story (although I bitched about image quality before MrSilverLust had the opportunity to upgrade his workstation). So, it always gets to my nerves when I see all sorts of unreasonable requests and even demands in a thread of one of the best and highest ranked games here. The way things were handled so far is what makes it great. Changing it because of this or that would just ruin it. The same ruin I've witnessed in other great projects where devs couldn't handle the pressure of criticism and the vocal abuse of hyperactive crowds.
So now I have a request to MrSilverLust: ignore all that and keep your north. You've walked enough to know the road and the destination. I'll keep you company and share my thoughts and whatever things I may find to make this a better story.


One thing that keeps bugging me: that idea of a MFFFFFFFFFFF manysome... Don't discard it completely... Wouldn't that be wholesome?

 

[DeFuZe]

Of course that's an issue. As are all the other things the game failed to provide. Every update there are these kind of requests/criticisms:

Why don't Emma and Jen have more vanilla kinks?
Why doesn't Deb have more scenes with a dominant MC? Why is she so stuck up into femdom?
Why can Jen be more into femdom?
Why is the MC not more dominant and take what it wants from any girl? What a doormat.
Why is the MC such a bad sub? He doesn't understand anything about femdom.
Why is the MC so creepy and pushover? I didn't like how the start of the relationship with Lea was handled.
Why do I have to keep being friends with Emma? I don't want to see her in the game anymore after chapter 1.
Why do I need to keep seeing Kim. She's a bitch and I don't like her.
Why is so much time spent on Lea? She's boring and not into femdom.
Why does Bri and Olivia have so little content? They are the best characters.
Why does the MC need to be a sub when sharing Jen? I like sharing, not being submissive.
Why are Bri scenes so vanilla? I like femdom/mendom, not that boring thing.
Why are this game's scenes so boring with no animations? I want animations.
Why is this another boring game with foursomes and bromance and shit? I what MFFFFF thressomes and foursomes and harem (alright, this one is from fapnation, it doesn't count xD).

All of these changes are totally reasonable, could be made to work, and wouldn't make the game any worse. Might even make some of it better/more plausible, etc.

It's just that, to do them, either would take more developing time, or I would have had to cut some of the content I did (and then people would have asked why that isn't in the game instead). I have limited time/resources... Believe me, no one gets more frustrated with the gap between what the game is. and what the game could be, than me. For every single thing that is chosen to be in the game, some compromise had to be made. And it saddens me that I can't make it.


So. At the start of the game, when the kink menu is shown for the first time, there are some promise the game makes to the players: All these kinks will be present one way or another. You'll only see them if you pick the relevant skills.

My main focus is to keep true to this promise. This is how I decide what compromises to make. But there are a million ways I could go about doing that. How do I chose just one of them?

Well, let's say there is a Venn diagram which has on one side: my vision of the game and all the possible ways of how the characters can go from point A to point B;
And on the other side of the diagram, we have: what the many possible players want to see in the game.

Throughout these 2 years of development I tried to get the common ground from this diagram. Reading comments, making polls on patreon, gathering feedback, etc.

Emma has always been consistently on the top 2 of favorite LIs of my patrons, regardless if they are in the sensitive or manly path. In this chapter poll, only 1% of 140 patron votes rejected any of her paths. So, I think I did a good job with the compromises I did with her, and got into the sweet spot of that venn diagram. Outside of patreon, this game still has a reasonable rating here, with 4.7 out of 100 and 114 reviews. Not too shabby. It seems to be doing something well for the audience it's aimed to.


But that doesn't mean that all possible players would be happy with the game. Of course it's impossible to please everyone. And that also doesn't mean everything was well done, is plausible, etc. Everyone has some fair complain about how some thing was handled. I've been taking all the feedback I can, but I'm only human: there will always be mistakes, poor decisions, things that failed the mark, etc.



WARNING: Little rant ahead:

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

/rant over

This isn't to say to say you are wrong or make bad suggestions. Of course not. If you had come earlier in development, your voice would also have been part of the venn diagram. And, who knows, maybe things would have been slightly different. With hindsight, I do think it would have been better to have more vanilla friendly content. And when I decide to add that to option to Emma, the answer is "don't you think that's a problem that happens this late in the game and there are no vanilla sex scenes until now?" Well, what was the alternative, through everything in the bin and start from scratch?

Developing a game is just a huge compromise all the way down. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

BTW, I'm answering to you, but this is not an answer to just you. As stated at the start of the post, there's lots of these suggestions, you just need to go through the last pages after the latest release.

I've refrained from commenting about this lately, but why not give my perspective on this.

Totally agree with this. It's impossible to please everyone and this is not the way to go anyway. It is amazing that you still take the feedback and the suggestions whenever it's possible but still as an artist you should always stick with your vision and ideas, because at the end of the day it is your project and you should be happy with how it goes and the end results first. Wish you good luck and hope you will manage to stay healthy both physically and mentally to bring this beautiful project to it's conclusion.

 

[rezaf]

<snip>

Wow, thanks for the lengthy response.

By problem, I was merely refering to the fact that I can't really experience what you described in the game (yet). I wasn't trying to bring you down.

Despite what you write in the rant section, I feel it's totally my right to state my issues with the game, but, frankly, unless it's overwhelmingly one-sided feedback, you should just ignore what people like me on here write (i.e. you shouldn't change anything in the way you develop your game) - and you definately shouldn't let it get to you.
You should worry about making the game YOU want to make first, and second about pleasing the people that pay you, not freeloaders on here.

That said, I didn't make any demands what you ought to change or complaint about how your game was crap.
I gave it a 4 star review, which I think is fair considering I'm not too fond of most of the kinks the girls are stuck on.
In hindsight with a couple of replays under my belt, I think Lea is now my personal favorite, and I think you wrote somewhere she's a tier 2 of 3 character, which still gives me something to look forward to.
Maybe, if you end up making another game one day, you might consider having at least one female protagonist that's just a little bit more ordinary, but maybe you figure the strong dependence on kinks of your characters is just what you do best and stick to it. It's all your choice, of course. And I do realize it's all a balancing act.

As for my reasoning, maybe I'm totally clueless, but to me, a kink is supposed to be something like an additional erogene zone, that can be stimulated to make the sexual experience more intense. It doesn't mean you cannot enjoy more "vanilla" sex AT ALL, it just means, you got this additonal thing that also wants to get some attention every now and then. In NiF, it's more like an all or nothing, nevermind primary or secondary sexual assets, the kinks are where it's ALL at. Which I find a little unplausible, as I wrote above.

I can only repeat myself, please don't let feedback like this get to you.

Finally, there's one actual piece of feedback that I'd ACTUALLY love to see incorporated: Please consider implementing a way to speed up the mobile phone conversations when in skip mode. They take SUCH a long time... can't be that hard to implement, either.

Thanks for making the game, keep up the good work.

 

[noway1]

Of course that's an issue. As are all the other things the game failed to provide. Every update there are these kind of requests/criticisms:

Why don't Emma and Jen have more vanilla kinks?
Why doesn't Deb have more scenes with a dominant MC? Why is she so stuck up into femdom?
Why can Jen be more into femdom?
Why is the MC not more dominant and take what it wants from any girl? What a doormat.
Why is the MC such a bad sub? He doesn't understand anything about femdom.
Why is the MC so creepy and pushover? I didn't like how the start of the relationship with Lea was handled.
Why do I have to keep being friends with Emma? I don't want to see her in the game anymore after chapter 1.
Why do I need to keep seeing Kim. She's a bitch and I don't like her.
Why is so much time spent on Lea? She's boring and not into femdom.
Why does Bri and Olivia have so little content? They are the best characters.
Why does the MC need to be a sub when sharing Jen? I like sharing, not being submissive.
Why are Bri scenes so vanilla? I like femdom/mendom, not that boring thing.
Why are this game's scenes so boring with no animations? I want animations.
Why is this another boring game with foursomes and bromance and shit? I what MFFFFF thressomes and foursomes and harem (alright, this one is from fapnation, it doesn't count xD).

All of these changes are totally reasonable, could be made to work, and wouldn't make the game any worse. Might even make some of it better/more plausible, etc.

It's just that, to do them, either would take more developing time, or I would have had to cut some of the content I did (and then people would have asked why that isn't in the game instead). I have limited time/resources... Believe me, no one gets more frustrated with the gap between what the game is. and what the game could be, than me. For every single thing that is chosen to be in the game, some compromise had to be made. And it saddens me that I can't make it.


So. At the start of the game, when the kink menu is shown for the first time, there are some promise the game makes to the players: All these kinks will be present one way or another. You'll only see them if you pick the relevant skills.

My main focus is to keep true to this promise. This is how I decide what compromises to make. But there are a million ways I could go about doing that. How do I chose just one of them?

Well, let's say there is a Venn diagram which has on one side: my vision of the game and all the possible ways of how the characters can go from point A to point B;
And on the other side of the diagram, we have: what the many possible players want to see in the game.

Throughout these 2 years of development I tried to get the common ground from this diagram. Reading comments, making polls on patreon, gathering feedback, etc.

Emma has always been consistently on the top 2 of favorite LIs of my patrons, regardless if they are in the sensitive or manly path. In this chapter poll, only 1% of 140 patron votes rejected any of her paths. So, I think I did a good job with the compromises I did with her, and got into the sweet spot of that venn diagram. Outside of patreon, this game still has a reasonable rating here, with 4.7 out of 100 and 114 reviews. Not too shabby. It seems to be doing something well for the audience it's aimed to.


But that doesn't mean that all possible players would be happy with the game. Of course it's impossible to please everyone. And that also doesn't mean everything was well done, is plausible, etc. Everyone has some fair complain about how some thing was handled. I've been taking all the feedback I can, but I'm only human: there will always be mistakes, poor decisions, things that failed the mark, etc.



WARNING: Little rant ahead:

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

/rant over

This isn't to say to say you are wrong or make bad suggestions. Of course not. If you had come earlier in development, your voice would also have been part of the venn diagram. And, who knows, maybe things would have been slightly different. With hindsight, I do think it would have been better to have more vanilla friendly content. And when I decide to add that to option to Emma, the answer is "don't you think that's a problem that happens this late in the game and there are no vanilla sex scenes until now?" Well, what was the alternative, through everything in the bin and start from scratch?

Developing a game is just a huge compromise all the way down. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

BTW, I'm answering to you, but this is not an answer to just you. As stated at the start of the post, there's lots of these suggestions, you just need to go through the last pages after the latest release.

I've refrained from commenting about this lately, but why not give my perspective on this.

The rant is not bad, but could have been better. There is so much potential left.
Why is it only a reply to rezaf? I've seen many other attacks on MrSilverlust that should have been answered.
Also I don't like that he avoids slurs. For me slurs are essential for a good rant.
A good thing though are the questions. They really intensify the rant in the right moments, but most of the time, they are a bit short. And also the really short question are missing. Where is the "What the fuck?" and "Are you serious?" All good rants have them.
And way too much text and to few memes. Without meme, you shouldn't start a rant.

 

[osanaiko]

One internet tru-ism that I like to keep in mind is the 100/10/1 rule:

Out of 100 users
- 90 people lurk
- 9 people interact (write posts)
- 1 person creates Original Content

So you might guess that there are many more silent supporters...

 

[Pr0GamerJohnny]

As for my reasoning, maybe I'm totally clueless, but to me, a kink is supposed to be something like an additional erogene zone, that can be stimulated to make the sexual experience more intense. It doesn't mean you cannot enjoy more "vanilla" sex AT ALL, it just means, you got this additonal thing that also wants to get some attention every now and then. In NiF, it's more like an all or nothing, nevermind primary or secondary sexual assets, the kinks are where it's ALL at. Which I find a little unplausible, as I wrote above.

So much this - amplifying what I had written in an earlier post.

I would understand if the characters had only extreme scenes in one direction or another, and introducing new vanilla scenes then substantially increased workload. But this is not that.

Take Jen for example. Why after they have their initial sub/dom convo is the night not closed out with SOME kind of intimacy? You could even reuse pieces from her existing sex scenes around those chapters; it's not like the "dom" sex scenes involve her head being rammed into the mattress while passing out from suffocation, no, without the dialogue for context visually they look pretty normal.

Over time the characters are turning more into kink caricatures, yet oddly almost only in dialogue alone. And when I say kinks, that suggests a generous plurality which isn't even really true; let's call it what it is, the game's about sub and dom. Are there more traits and routes than that? Absolutely, but after you've played through a few times on different routes; you start to get the sense of vastly disproportionate creative energy spent on the other routes, and the 4-quadrant kink chart is really more like this:



I realize this sounds fairly whiny and embittered, but this went from one of the most promising games on the site for me to a thoroughly mediocre title over the last patch. The talent certainly seems to be there, I just can't understand the direction.

 

[RoryTate]

The talent certainly seems to be there, I just can't understand the direction.

From playing through the game and from the design manifestos I have read from the dev, I actually think the direction is pretty well thought out and is done with the goal of finding the best mix of personal expression and drawing in the widest audience possible. That's a very laudable goal, and the dev is very intelligent and on the correct path to making a great game from what I've seen. IMO, the problems arise more in the execution and details of making that complicated vision a reality. I'm a creator myself – not here, but with music and writing elsewhere – and sometimes I just have to accept when I've failed to bring what I imagine into reality, especially once I see the responses from others. There are times when their reactions are not at all what I expect, and the blame often lies in the execution and the limited time available to fix – and fit together – every last little detail in something. It really is a lot of work to bring an imagined concept to fruition. Especially one as large and difficult as a visual novel, with story, pictures, music, and gameplay all needing to work together to create an enjoyable experience.

A good example of this in the game is Emma. As the dev just noted, she is consistently a very popular character among the game's fanbase, and rightfully so, because she has so much awesome potential. She has been well set up with a compelling backstory and personal motivations, and has very dynamic and interesting interactions with the MC and others. Especially the hot and heavy sexual encounters that have been written for her, because they land with such strong impact. However, there are some problems in the execution of that vision that have begun to appear. I actually suspect the "Emma gives MC flowers" scene – that kind of came from out of nowhere recently – was added because she wasn't quite working out the way he had imagined. I could be wrong, but perhaps he recognized that she had become too mentally exhausting and "high maintenance" to interact with, so he took the time to show that she had a nice, easygoing side as well. If this is the case, consciously or not, then this is a good choice of direction to make in the story. Again though, the execution of this vision suffered because she immediately became angry and verbally abusive with the MC afterwards, with no sign of self-awareness, which negated the previous relaxed and enjoyable interaction. Plus, the flowers weren't even a gift...just a carrot to reward him for being "useful" to her and her vulnerable friend (which only boomeranged on her and actually proved his earlier remark about men being disposable and not valued if they weren't useful). So to me, at best this scene unfortunately ended up reproducing the known IPV cycle of "abuse your spouse, then make up for it with a grandiose show of affection, such as giving expensive gifts, praise/lovebombing, hot and wild sex, etc". Although that could be exactly what the dev wants, because that will be used later in her character arc to great effect. I don't know what the future holds for Emma. I only know that I felt that something wasn't working with Emma's character, and that she had grown much less interesting as a potential LI as a result of this scene and others.

Again, as a creator myself at times, I have learned two invaluable lessons about feedback.

The first is that people's time is more valuable to them than money. So if they are willing to offer their precious time in response to something I have created, that is to be respected. The signal-to-noise ratio is important, yes, but considering the tiny percentage who say anything, I value even the shorter responses (at least if they aren't "the guitar solos need to be shorter/longer" type of passing remark that make me suspicious that some AI/NPC wrote them).

The second is that feedback is great for understanding that something is not working, but is useless in identifying how to fix it. No one but the creator sees the overall vision for how everything fits together. So most suggestions from the fanbase about requested changes are best to be ignored. There can be some novel ideas offered, yes. And maybe areas of popular interest that are fine to add in (though caution is needed here, because adding work will always have a negative impact on the other work that needs doing; no feature is an island). Crowdsourcing can indeed be quite powerful. But the specifics of people's reactions is not as important as you may think. This is actually why veterans of focus group activities are more often concerned with what is missing from a group's reaction than anything else. For example, the feedback might say that 50% had a positive opinion on a character, while 50% didn't like them, but the action item stemming from those comments has nothing to do with that character at all, and instead is something like: "They didn't mention whether the dog was adorable or not, and that is the primary goal of this scene, so we've failed at what we wanted to achieve and have to scrap everything and go back to the drawing board...this won't work unless their whole attention is on the dog's antics". So my advice to fellow creators is to ignore the proposed solutions, and only pay attention at a high level to the general feedback to try and understand when something isn't working.

Just my two cents minutes.

 

[EndlessNights]

And when I say kinks, that suggests a generous plurality which isn't even really true; let's call it what it is, the game's about sub and dom. Are there more traits and routes than that? Absolutely, but after you've played through a few times on different routes; you start to get the sense of vastly disproportionate creative energy spent on the other routes

I think Nothing Is Forever is in a sense a victim of MrSilverLust's great writing and story because the narrative and the characters suck people in and make them want to play routes that aren't particularly sexually appealing to them. I would guess that you're probably complaining about the BDSM focus because you've forced yourself to see a lot of dom and sub scenes you'd rather not have witnessed just because something about Deb, Jen, and/or Emma drew you in.

I can understand that POV to an extent because I don't personally find BDSM particularly exciting either, but I guess where I differ with you is I don't think every route needs to appeal to my personal tastes and I don't really mind slogging through the occasional sex scene that isn't all that hot to me. Sometimes it actually can be fun to take off your porn fiend baseball cap and put on your sexologist monocle and top hat so you can just watch all the weird human sexual behavior on display with a more critical and detached eye. Or you could just skip through the scenes that don't strike your fancy and still enjoy the story. And if it still bothers you, why even play the route at all? Particularly if you feel "the characters are turning more into kink caricatures" anyway (I strongly disagree).

If you had just played the routes that focused on kinks you like, would you feel the same about the game as you do now? Is it really fair to blame a game that takes kinks seriously for having characters who care deeply about their kinks? Like it or not, being a dom and/or sub is part of who Deb, Jen, Emma, and Kim are and it is an important aspect of their sexuality that they aren't casual about when they're paired with a simpatico partner. If anything, the characters are probably more flexible than a lot of people in real life equally devoted to their kinks would be. True switches like Emma are rare. A lot of subs wouldn't consider bringing in another person into the relationship just so they could be with another sub like Jen does. A lot of dommes wouldn't be as open to casual vanilla sex as Deb is. IMO, MrSilverLust doesn't get enough credit for trying to be accommodating while still remaining true to his overall vision for the game.

However, there are some problems in the execution of that vision that have begun to appear. I actually suspect the "Emma gives MC flowers" scene – that kind of came from out of nowhere recently – was added because she wasn't quite working out the way he had imagined.

I don't think it came out of nowhere personally. Emma and the MC had been working closely together over the whole episode trying to help Monika. They had a common cause, they collaborated well together, and the outcome was about as good as could be hoped for given the situation. The idea flowed from their earlier conversation, but I tend to think Emma was genuinely grateful for the MC's vital assistance and wanted to celebrate him a little in that moment. She seems to treat her other friends well for the most part judging by how she is with Paige and Monika. That she and the MC would quickly fall back into their old patterns after that nice moment wasn't all that surprising to me. It's not easy to change relationship and sexual dynamics on a dime. You could take it as a sign that things might be different in the future between them, but that's a big maybe.

I actually felt like the flowers scene was particularly vital if you're playing a friendship route with Emma because they don't always seem like particularly good friends up to that point. If they AREN'T secretly flirting or engaging in verbal foreplay, they can just come across as two people who are frequently shitty to one another and constantly try to one-up the other person. Who really wants to constantly have to scramble for dominance and have nasty, personal arguments with their friends? So, to me, it was a big moment in terms of establishing a plausible Emma-MC platonic friendship, and the friendly vibes continue through the next chapter if you're not romancing Emma.

 

[ename144]

I think Nothing Is Forever is in a sense a victim of MrSilverLust's great writing and story because the narrative and the characters suck people in and make them want to play routes that aren't particularly sexually appealing to them. I would guess that you're probably complaining about the BDSM focus because you've forced yourself to see a lot of dom and sub scenes you'd rather not have witnessed just because something about Deb, Jen, and/or Emma drew you in.

I can understand that POV to an extent because I don't personally find BDSM particularly exciting either, but I guess where I differ with you is I don't think every route needs to appeal to my personal tastes and I don't really mind slogging through the occasional sex scene that isn't all that hot to me. Sometimes it actually can be fun to take off your porn fiend baseball cap and put on your sexologist monocle and top hat so you can just watch all the weird human sexual behavior on display with a more critical and detached eye. Or you could just skip through the scenes that don't strike your fancy and still enjoy the story. And if it still bothers you, why even play the route at all? Particularly if you feel "the characters are turning more into kink caricatures" anyway (I strongly disagree).

If you had just played the routes that focused on kinks you like, would you feel the same about the game as you do now? Is it really fair to blame a game that takes kinks seriously for having characters who care deeply about their kinks? Like it or not, being a dom and/or sub is part of who Deb, Jen, Emma, and Kim are and it is an important aspect of their sexuality that they aren't casual about when they're paired with a simpatico partner. If anything, the characters are probably more flexible than a lot of people in real life equally devoted to their kinks would be. True switches like Emma are rare. A lot of subs wouldn't consider bringing in another person into the relationship just so they could be with another sub like Jen does. A lot of dommes wouldn't be as open to casual vanilla sex as Deb is. IMO, MrSilverLust doesn't get enough credit for trying to be accommodating while still remaining true to his overall vision for the game.

I don't know. I've completely avoided the game's Sub/Dom content but I still find the way the game approaches the various LI's frustrating. The MC and a girl are either 100% focused on some kink or they're almost completely incapable of expressing any level of intimacy. It feels extremely artificial, even when I find the banter and underlying dynamics entirely reasonable. It makes perfect sense that Emma might, for example, enjoy being 'humiliated' by someone she trusts, but that trust should still be accessible even in other contexts. Instead, it's almost like the MC has to use the various kinks as a crutch for his absolutely abysmal communication skills.

I get that the dev wanted to keep the focus on the kinks and it's certainly his call to make, but I still think he erred in almost completely excising 'vanilla' content from the game.

I don't think it came out of nowhere personally. Emma and the MC had been working closely together over the whole episode trying to help Monika. They had a common cause, they collaborated well together, and the outcome was about as good as could be hoped for given the situation. The idea flowed from their earlier conversation, but I tend to think Emma was genuinely grateful for the MC's vital assistance and wanted to celebrate him a little in that moment. She seems to treat her other friends well for the most part judging by how she is with Paige and Monika. That she and the MC would quickly fall back into their old patterns after that nice moment wasn't all that surprising to me. It's not easy to change relationship and sexual dynamics on a dime. You could take it as a sign that things might be different in the future between them, but that's a big maybe.

I actually felt like the flowers scene was particularly vital if you're playing a friendship route with Emma because they don't always seem like particularly good friends up to that point. If they AREN'T secretly flirting or engaging in verbal foreplay, they can just come across as two people who are frequently shitty to one another and constantly try to one-up the other person. Who really wants to constantly have to scramble for dominance and have nasty, personal arguments with their friends? So, to me, it was a big moment in terms of establishing a plausible Emma-MC platonic friendship, and the friendly vibes continue through the next chapter if you're not romancing Emma.

I agree that the flower scene flowed nicely from Monica's storyline on the friendship route (admittedly, I can't really comment on any other route since I've never seen them). But I was disappointed by Emma's content in the rest of the chapter if you try to start a non-Dom/Sub relationship with her at that point. Sure, I buy that it would be very awkward at first as the two try way too hard to be nice to each other. But at a certain point these are still adults - and psychologists at that. They ought to be able to recognize the problem and find ways to work around it - or at the very least discuss the matter directly.

Sadly, they don't really do that; they have an awkward date, almost succumb to a moment of passion before being cockblocked by Monica, then otherwise ignore their newfound relationship as they go on with their normal lives. I'm not saying we needed a full sex scene or anything, but we needed something after 5 chapters of buildup. Instead it comes across almost as an afterthought, which just goes to reinforce the feeling that this game is more interested in the LIs as vehicles for kinks than as characters in their own right.

IMHO, obviously.

 

[EndlessNights]

I don't know. I've completely avoided the game's Sub/Dom content but I still find the way the game approaches the various LI's frustrating. The MC and a girl are either 100% focused on some kink or they're almost completely incapable of expressing any level of intimacy. It feels extremely artificial, even when I find the banter and underlying dynamics entirely reasonable. It makes perfect sense that Emma might, for example, enjoy being 'humiliated' by someone she trusts, but that trust should still be accessible even in other contexts. Instead, it's almost like the MC has to use the various kinks as a crutch for his absolutely abysmal communication skills.

I think Emma also has seriously questionable communication skills when it comes to expressing her innermost feelings and revealing her vulnerabilities. She has walls up that aren't easily scaled and the MC does tend to bang his head against them from time to time. Even her relationships with her girlfriends so far seem to be more based on Emma helping them when they are in need than they are about sharing thoughts and feelings. Perhaps one way BDSM is helpful to Emma is because it enables her to escape her mental chains by pouring herself into a simpler, more defined role for a while.

I'd argue there's both emotional and physical intimacy on Lea's romantic/less exhibitionistic route that has nothing to do with her kinks. I'm sure it bores the daylights out of some players, but I personally love the way their relationship has developed on that route. It's just so cozy and comfortable. There's little drama and barely ever even a discordant word exchanged...instead, it's just two people who get each other and feel totally at ease with one another. They may well need to face a serious challenge to get to the next level in their relationship, but I'm going to enjoy the mellow vibes as long as I can.

I agree that the flower scene flowed nicely from Monica's storyline on the friendship route (admittedly, I can't really comment on any other route since I've never seen them). But I was disappointed by Emma's content in the rest of the chapter if you try to start a non-Dom/Sub relationship with her at that point. Sure, I buy that it would be very awkward at first as the two try way too hard to be nice to each other. But at a certain point these are still adults - and psychologists at that. They ought to be able to recognize the problem and find ways to work around it - or at the very least discuss the matter directly.

You have the advantage here because I actually didn't even realize there was any sort of vanilla route with Emma possible until MrSilverLust (or should we say MrSilverLove since he's begun delving into the dark world of super chaste romance?) mentioned it in a post a while back. I still don't have a save for that path, but I will definitely create one since it does sound like it will be interesting. I'm not surprised at all that it's rough going and awkward to start out with because that's par for the course for those two.

 

[Turret]

Hi MrSilverLust !

I really enjoy your game and it is one of the notable games here on F95 without doubt! You put a lot of thought into the game and characters and it shows.
So onwards to the LIs! For me Lea and Olivia are in front, followed by Jen.

Lea: I find her an allround wellmade and nice character. Nice step by step development of her exhibitionism. Looking forward to see how her kink develops further both in a relationship with the MC or not. I am also curious about the beginning sharing path with her, all her paths have great potential.

Olivia: Unfortunately we have too few interactions with her in my opinion. I like our open for nearly anything ray of sunshine very much, as mentioned together with Lea my two favourites. And that we can get her to check out her genetic health - bonus!

Jen: Wonderful to see a chessplayer in a major role together with some nice chess games. I was a bit surprised how much I like her as a LI, considering that I am indifferent to her submission kink. The bodypainting with Free Use, Slut, Cutie and so on was nice change, but not so interested in this kink. But that is personal taste, Jen as a character is really good.

Emma: I know she is a fan favourite here, but I am very lukewarm about her as a LI. Friend ok, but love interest? Emma being contrarian is not a problem, that can be handled and is part of the MC and Emma, no biggie, but she is also high maintainance and worse, she is a female chauvinist. Part of the holiday and the flower event show very clearly that in her heart of hearts Emma is the same type of person she despices. For her, men are rubbish from the start and utterly disposable unless somehow useful, be it as a living dildo or helping. That is simply 180° degrees turned chauvinism. No thanks, female chauvis are not one iota better than male chauvis. Currently, this situation leaves the MC with just two options to get into bed with Emma. Either be a servile doormat or a driven to white heat hatefuck.