VN Ren'Py Completed Now & Then [v1.00.0] [ILSProductions]

[PaxHadrian17]

I just love this VN. The storytelling is so good that you can create an entire novel with it. I don't know much about renders or other stuff and hell, I don't think this VN would stand out as top of the list in terms visual department, it's good enough but writing is the best.

I started playing this AVN when COVID started shutting down parts of the U.S. and the isolation parallels between Now and Then and RL were uncanny.

I traveled a lot for work during COVID and it was Stephen King strange to be one of 15 people on a 150 person jet, land at airports where everyone was masked and most had face shields, and do everything possible to minimize contact just to get to the hotel and eat take out isolated from anyone who might have COVID.

I think Kinderfeld did a great job trying to capture the isolation and the sense of the MC/Carol/Naomi becoming their own little island trying to ride out the pandemic.

The story did not need a huge cast of characters but each of the women (potential LIs in the Director's Cut rev) was well developed and played an important part in the story.

I also appreciated that the MC was more of an 'Everyman' - not a former Navy Seal or Spec Ops warrior - just an office worker who saw trouble coming and did what he could to prepare for it. I've actually looked up some of the gear he bought in the story - those solar lamps are not a bad idea to keep on hand just in case.

I liked the graphics - not photorealistic but somewhat gritty, with good use of facial expressions, animations and sound.

This was one of my early great finds for AVNs!

If you like this, you should check out The Interim Domain, his next creation - and he is continuing to do monthly releases (I don't know that he has missed one monthly update in the 3 years I have been a supporter)

Cheers!!

 

[Alienhead074]

Does anyone have the android version with the Multimod installed?

 

[Vlbc]

I saw some people saying that there is not a harem route and others saying that there is.
Can someone please tell who is right?

 

[Coaxmetal]

I saw some people saying that there is not a harem route and others saying that there is.
Can someone please tell who is right?

The MC has multiple lovers who know about each other. In the end you move in together with a couple of them (depends on who has the highest relationship), the rest live nearby and MC visits them regularly and vice versa. So it depends on your definition of harem.

 

[-El-]

This game is so brilliant, the beatles even wrote a song about it coming out on November 2.

You must be registered to see the links

 

[7empest5teele]

What an incredible odyssey this turned out to be, with what ended up essentially being a harem VN (or is it more attuned to a linear path KN instead?)
The character growth for virtually everyone relevant in this story was well planned out and didn't contradict themselves with only the occasional dialog mishaps (like EVERYONE saying " 'KAY " including an unretired police officer).
Most of the eroticy was streamlined into the story like it was designed to happen at that moment (or not naturally depending on the MCs choices of course) though occasionally some appeared to be added due to possible supporter complaints that there was too much story and not enough sex during some of the updates, even THOSE added scenes were treated very well on each and every occasion.
As a reader invested in the story I was reading, I would have preferred to go in a different direction or two with the ending, and who I would spend most of my life with, which, in hindsight, does make this out to be more of a Kinetic Novel, but I still enjoy the direction the story took, in how we reached the epilog to the ending.
I do not write reviews or comments noting my appreciation about very many games or novels...this one though, the entire creation process deserves to be noted and shared with as many individuals as possible.
Good luck with your future projects, I hope to follow them and become as immersed as I was within this story.

 

[SonsOfLiberty]

I refreshed compressed links that have the bugixes included, the offical compressed in the OP does not have the bugfix.

 

[PaxHadrian17]

What an incredible odyssey this turned out to be, with what ended up essentially being a harem VN (or is it more attuned to a linear path KN instead?)
The character growth for virtually everyone relevant in this story was well planned out and didn't contradict themselves with only the occasional dialog mishaps (like EVERYONE saying " 'KAY " including an unretired police officer).
Most of the eroticy was streamlined into the story like it was designed to happen at that moment (or not naturally depending on the MCs choices of course) though occasionally some appeared to be added due to possible supporter complaints that there was too much story and not enough sex during some of the updates, even THOSE added scenes were treated very well on each and every occasion.
As a reader invested in the story I was reading, I would have preferred to go in a different direction or two with the ending, and who I would spend most of my life with, which, in hindsight, does make this out to be more of a Kinetic Novel, but I still enjoy the direction the story took, in how we reached the epilog to the ending.
I do not write reviews or comments noting my appreciation about very many games or novels...this one though, the entire creation process deserves to be noted and shared with as many individuals as possible.
Good luck with your future projects, I hope to follow them and become as immersed as I was within this story.

I thought Now and Then was Very well done.

I won't reiterate prior posts on this thread where I go into my thoughts, just that this was an unexpectedly good surprise when I found it.

If you liked this AVN - then I highly recommend trying out The Interim Domain - Kinderfeld's next AVN. It is well into development now and he continues to make monthly updates without fail.

It takes longer to get into - the setting takes some world-building to establish, but there are some great stories within the larger story, including some well-crafted looks into what it is to be human.

Cheers!!

 

[Quetzzz]

Am I alone in having the impression that Carol and Naomi (in lesser degree) tried to whore out the MC to Alice?

This, and the relationship of Alice and Naomi put me off of Alice. If Naomi had put on her big girl panties and talked openly with the MC about it, I would've felt differently.

 

[erkper]

Am I alone in having the impression that Carol and Naomi (in lesser degree) tried to whore out the MC to Alice?

This, and the relationship of Alice and Naomi put me off of Alice. If Naomi had put on her big girl panties and talked openly with the MC about it, I would've felt differently.

I always felt the same, and likewise avoided Alice for that reason.

 

[mordred93]

Am I alone in having the impression that Carol and Naomi (in lesser degree) tried to whore out the MC to Alice?

This, and the relationship of Alice and Naomi put me off of Alice. If Naomi had put on her big girl panties and talked openly with the MC about it, I would've felt differently.

I would say yes, but remember this is a teenager who hasn't had many relationships, and what she had seen, was her parents and stupid social media. Until you have lived in a real relationship and seen what a healthy relationship was, and matured to the point you can talk to your parents about sex, then this is what you get. I would say it is spot on for the characters, while not the best for a story perspective.

 

[Quetzzz]

I would say it is spot on for the characters, while not the best for a story perspective.

Yet Carol was much more mature when she talked to the MC about Naomi's interest. Of course, the situation isn't the same, Naomi had a real heart-to-heart with Carol about it. Nobody really talked to Alice to see what she wanted, at least before the date.
Then the second chance comes along, but (as far as I remember), no real information got back to the MC, and my MC doesn't want to risk his relationship with Naomi at that point. There's been enough drama already.

 

[mordred93]

Yet Carol was much more mature when she talked to the MC about Naomi's interest. Of course, the situation isn't the same, Naomi had a real heart-to-heart with Carol about it. Nobody really talked to Alice to see what she wanted, at least before the date.
Then the second chance comes along, but (as far as I remember), no real information got back to the MC, and my MC doesn't want to risk his relationship with Naomi at that point. There's been enough drama already.

You will find that children from broken or divorced homes go one of two ways. Are more mature for their age, or act out to gain attention. Carol is the former.

 

[PyoT]

Late to the party, but finally finished it. I think I started about a year ago, which presumably says something about that experience - but first things first; congratz to a dev actually finishing a quite large game; probably heard that praise a few times by now, but it just must be respected among the pile of unfinished and abandoned and ongoing projects

As for my take on the game; I quite liked it, but also it kinda ran out of steam for me. I definitely would not have wanted for it to go on even longer. I most enjoyed the early parts, when things where developing, when the story felt quite threatening but was also slowly including the various erotic elements ...
... later, when it was more harem-y and the threat wasn't so "zombie-based" anymore (and our dude got a bit too survival-chad-dude to me) I lost some interest.

People will disagree, but cutting 95% of all the flashbacks would improve the pacing and thus the game immensely. They are typical first draft elements that would be red penned in a second or at the latest third editing of a story. They don't add enough and interrupt far too much.

Porn-wise ... you kinda can't unsee the HS2-animation loops and such after a bit, but at least in the beginning the writing/scenario made up for some of that. Though, again, towards the end I didn't really need even more.

Overall good stuff and certainly a game I generally would say people should try on here (for one, because you can actually finish playing it) but, yeah, obviously, if I'd completely loved every second of it I'd have played through it in a week and not a year, duh

 

[7empest5teele]

It may be late in the construction, but I think it would have been great to have each girl have their own sexual specialty, like deep throating, anal, cowgirl, doggy etc., the same as they all have their own name they call the MC like Sweetums, Baby, Handsome, Scrub, Lover, Dear, again etc, since all of them have forgotten what that name could be lol.

 

[MangoTree]

Was scrolling through posts here and noticed an image of carol and naomi having sex with random guys, I'm assuming its from the bad end in 0.26? think the dev removed it from the directors cut, checked out the bad end through the gallery and it just shows them walking into a bar now. which is better I think, though I doubt many would have seen the bad end anyway, without the gallery lol.

 

[mordred93]

Was scrolling through posts here and noticed an image of carol and naomi having sex with random guys, I'm assuming its from the bad end in 0.26? think the dev removed it from the directors cut, checked out the bad end through the gallery and it just shows them walking into a bar now. which is better I think, though I doubt many would have seen the bad end anyway, without the gallery lol.

It was the bed end. I don't think it was removed from the directors cut as there has to be something BAD for you to ignore the main two girls.

 

[MangoTree]

It was the bed end. I don't think it was removed from the directors cut as there has to be something BAD for you to ignore the main two girls.

Just had a look at the bad end in the directors cut and it doesn't have that image. Its still a bad end because it basically says that the girls go on with their lives and that Jack is pained and might regret some of his choices, julie and sydney are still in the haven and Hana becomes a drunk I think.

So yeah, I think that image was removed and replaced with naomi and carol walking into a bar [they're wearing the same outfits as That image I think]. Or maybe the chapter select bad end is different? but I don't think so.

 

[mordred93]

Just had a look at the bad end in the directors cut and it doesn't have that image. Its still a bad end because it basically says that the girls go on with their lives and that Jack is pained and might regret some of his choices, julie and sydney are still in the haven and Hana becomes a drunk I think.

So yeah, I think that image was removed and replaced with naomi and carol walking into a bar [they're wearing the same outfits as That image I think]. Or maybe the chapter select bad end is different? but I don't think so.

I am not sure, haven't played the directors cut yet. Too much IRL. I didn't even get to update the WT - the Dev did it. There was a ton of backlash from people about that image - calling it NTR or some stuff. Not surprised if it was removed.

 

[StephanieD]

any idea why text in game looks like this? I tried small compressed and bigger compressed versions and both are like this, also both crash non stop
View attachment 2732624

I've played two games that have done exactly the same as your picture, and this game Now & Then
I couldn't start the game without getting an exe close error.

The way to fix this if this happens to you, is change your graphics settings.
Start the game while holding down the Shift key and click on your mouse button.
Then when a screen pops up go under renderer and select
Force ANGLE2 Renderer it should fix the issues.