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

[JMan9200]

Hi.

I've just been replaying N&T recently, and during the game I found a couple of omissions that the current Walkthough Mod wasnt correcly explaining, so I've uploaded a new minor release of it, containing those fixes and a couple of extra explanations in certain choices of the game.

You can find it labeled as "v3" in the same post as originally uploaded: https://f95zone.to/threads/now-then-v1-00-0-ilsproductions.51634/post-13471610

Hey! I started the game not too long ago using the pinned written walkthrough, with all the flowcharts and arrows. Just started chapter 11. I couldn't get a clear answer on this in the thread since it seems to have changed multiple times as the game released over the years, but since I'm going for the full harem ending, does the mod allow for all the scenes to unlock as you go, even ones where you have to choose one sex scene over the other? How does the mod determine if you have to choose between a scene with Carol or Naomi and things like that?

I was thinking of installing it, but it got confusing to me because of the main lover connotation of the game at the end and how the mod impacts that part of the story, as well as who you have scenes with at certain times where you need to choose.

My understanding is that in general you just need to keep everyone's hearts up as high as possible for a harem ending. However, unlike most other harem avn games, this game has some sort of ranking situation later where depending on just how many hearts the love interests have compared to one another, the type of lover they are "main vs not-main?" at the end can change.

While I'm not a fan of that kind of "ranking" among love interests in a general sense, I do understand that the game was designed about having dozens of ending variations in mind and so the ranking aspect was necessary in the early days, so I get it.

 

[LokkenJP]

Hey! I started the game not too long ago using the pinned written walkthrough, with all the flowcharts and arrows. Just started chapter 11. I couldn't get a clear answer on this in the thread since it seems to have changed multiple times as the game released over the years, but since I'm going for the full harem ending, does the mod allow for all the scenes to unlock as you go, even ones where you have to choose one sex scene over the other? How does the mod determine if you have to choose between a scene with Carol or Naomi and things like that?

I was thinking of installing it, but it got confusing to me because of the main lover connotation of the game at the end and how the mod impacts that part of the story, as well as who you have scenes with at certain times where you need to choose.

My understanding is that in general you just need to keep everyone's hearts up as high as possible for a harem ending. However, unlike most other harem avn games, this game has some sort of ranking situation later where depending on just how many hearts the love interests have compared to one another, the type of lover they are "main vs not-main?" at the end can change.

While I'm not a fan of that kind of "ranking" among love interests in a general sense, I do understand that the game was designed about having dozens of ending variations in mind and so the ranking aspect was necessary in the early days, so I get it.

Hey. Hope you’re enjoying the game. Let me give you a couple of considerations here.

First. It’s impossible to unlock all the gallery in one go with one single playthrough. For multiple reasons. First is that there are several mutually exclusive paths that show one scene or other. That the mod do not track (so you only unlock the ones followed by your current gameplay path)
Secondly, there are a few scenes that are a bit “spoilerish” that only happen during a second gameplay, never on a first one.

The Mod can help with this by adding the gallery unlock feature, that allows you to see even those scenes that were omitted due to your choices.

In any case, the path followed by the WT mod covers the optimal path that unlocks the largest amount of content possible in one single go.

Finally, and this is feature of the game that the Mod has nothing to do with, the notion of a “main lover” ranked by the Love/like stat exist and even if it only gives minor changes to some texts during the game itself, it influences quite a lot the epilogue. There is a specific “focus” on the character that you end up choosing as your main LI, even if you maintain also a relation with all the other characters that you romance during the gameplay, which also have their (smaller) scenes during the epilogue.

 

[LokkenJP]

Forgot to add. I found a couple of extra issues in the game that I would like to correct, nothing major, but I will be uploading a new version of the WT Mod this same evening once I get back home. I will announce it here as soon as I’ve published the new one.

 

[JMan9200]

Hey. Hope you’re enjoying the game. Let me give you a couple of considerations here.

First. It’s impossible to unlock all the gallery in one go with one single playthrough. For multiple reasons. First is that there are several mutually exclusive paths that show one scene or other. That the mod do not track (so you only unlock the ones followed by your current gameplay path)
Secondly, there are a few scenes that are a bit “spoilerish” that only happen during a second gameplay, never on a first one.

The Mod can help with this by adding the gallery unlock feature, that allows you to see even those scenes that were omitted due to your choices.

In any case, the path followed by the WT mod covers the optimal path that unlocks the largest amount of content possible in one single go.

Finally, and this is feature of the game that the Mod has nothing to do with, the notion of a “main lover” ranked by the Love/like stat exist and even if it only gives minor changes to some texts during the game itself, it influences quite a lot the epilogue. There is a specific “focus” on the character that you end up choosing as your main LI, even if you maintain also a relation with all the other characters that you romance during the gameplay, which also have their (smaller) scenes during the epilogue.

Got it! Thanks for the info. I guess I'll just replay it or skip around with it on the second run and see whatever the new scenes are. It sucks that it sort of locks you into having that "main lover" distinction at the end to block out other content, but I know it must've been a core piece of the early developments to help give all these alternate endings.

In a general sense, Carol is the first and "main" girl if we think of it that way from a story perspective, especially since you're locked into early scenes with her no matter what (i.e. can't reject her in the beginning even if you wanted to) and your character cares about her the most at the start. Any deviation from that path just seems odd to me based on the narrative and very OOC. I've been playing around with picking negative options first and seeing how the dialogue plays out and then going back to pick the right option. So far it just seems pretty forced to go in those other directions lol. That's why I'm keeping her and Naomi as the priority in this first run in these early scenes, but intending to get as many of the other harem scenes as I can when they appear as well since that's the ultimate goal.

All that aside, I am enjoying the game a lot though in general. We need more zombie/apocalypse based harem AVNs like this. I'll be waiting a while for the developer's new game (Toxicity) to really pick up some steam I think since it's only on .10 which is less than half of this one, if it ends up as long as this one with the same amount of content per update that is, but I'm looking forward to the overall finished product at any rate.

 

[LokkenJP]

Got it! Thanks for the info. I guess I'll just replay it or skip around with it on the second run and see whatever the new scenes are. It sucks that it sort of locks you into having that "main lover" distinction at the end to block out other content, but I know it must've been a core piece of the early developments to help give all these alternate endings.

In a general sense, Carol is the first and "main" girl if we think of it that way from a story perspective, especially since you're locked into early scenes with her no matter what (i.e. can't reject her in the beginning even if you wanted to) and your character cares about her the most at the start. Any deviation from that path just seems odd to me based on the narrative and very OOC. I've been playing around with picking negative options first and seeing how the dialogue plays out and then going back to pick the right option. So far it just seems pretty forced to go in those other directions lol. That's why I'm keeping her and Naomi as the priority in this first run in these early scenes, but intending to get as many of the other harem scenes as I can when they appear as well since that's the ultimate goal.

All that aside, I am enjoying the game a lot though in general. We need more zombie/apocalypse based harem AVNs like this. I'll be waiting a while for the developer's new game (Toxicity) to really pick up some steam I think since it's only on .10 which is less than half of this one, if it ends up as long as this one with the same amount of content per update that is, but I'm looking forward to the overall finished product at any rate.

Eventually, every love interest can be maintained, or dumped. In fact, it's even possible to reach the ending with all love interests paths severed, (including Carol), for a, lets say, "interesting" ending. Not that I recommend it but yeah, the possibility is there.
Eventually you will find more LIs, up to six. Note that the last two ones, as they are introduced so late in the story, do not follow the same "Love points" structure, and they can be manually chosen as the "main lover" for the endings instead just by keeping their paths open and then taking a certain choice at a given point in the game (the Mod now warns you about this fact when that point is reached).

Toxicity is expected to have about the same number of chapers as N&T (23-25 give or take). Just as a curisity. Eventually, it should be as large, if not more, than N&T.

If you like the zombie genre, a recent game I discovered by pure accident, Deadmoon Survival by Hot Tomato. Very nice one, albeit the game had a very bumpy development cycle, and then the dev left for personal issues for almost a year. The story was cut short with a somewhat rushed ending when the dev finally returned to the game a few months ago. At least the game is now more or less "Completed" with a closed storyline, but one cannot stop wondering how even more awesome could the game had become if the dev were able to complete his original vision with the original planned storyline.

In other things, I've finally uploaded the new version of the Walkthough Mod in my original post: https://f95zone.to/threads/now-then-v1-00-0-ilsproductions.51634/post-13471610
Hopefully this should be the final version unless some bug appears

 

[JMan9200]

Eventually, every love interest can be maintained, or dumped. In fact, it's even possible to reach the ending with all love interests paths severed, (including Carol), for a, lets say, "interesting" ending. Not that I recommend it but yeah, the possibility is there.
Eventually you will find more LIs, up to six. Note that the last two ones, as they are introduced so late in the story, do not follow the same "Love points" structure, and they can be manually chosen as the "main lover" for the endings instead just by keeping their paths open and then taking a certain choice at a given point in the game (the Mod now warns you about this fact when that point is reached).

Toxicity is expected to have about the same number of chapers as N&T (23-25 give or take). Just as a curisity. Eventually, it should be as large, if not more, than N&T.

If you like the zombie genre, a recent game I discovered by pure accident, Deadmoon Survival by Hot Tomato. Very nice one, albeit the game had a very bumpy development cycle, and then the dev left for personal issues for almost a year. The story was cut short with a somewhat rushed ending when the dev finally returned to the game a few months ago. At least the game is now more or less "Completed" with a closed storyline, but one cannot stop wondering how even more awesome could the game had become if the dev were able to complete his original vision with the original planned storyline.

In other things, I've finally uploaded the new version of the Walkthough Mod in my original post: https://f95zone.to/threads/now-then-v1-00-0-ilsproductions.51634/post-13471610
Hopefully this should be the final version unless some bug appears

Thanks! Good to know! I was curious about that based on perusing some later info in the guide lol. I think I'll try the mod out on my second playthrough and see how it goes. I'm glad Toxicity will be just as long since this dev definitely has talent! I know they also made some superhero one as well, but that hasn't received the director's cut harem ending yet, so I'm waiting to try that one out once it does. I'll take a look at your other game suggestion too!

 

[danb35]

I know they also made some superhero one

I don't think I'd describe TID that way, although it's hard to categorize--it's almost like "Touched by an Angel" but without Michael Landon and Roma Downey (and I think MC there even says as much). Oh, and it's literally the end of the world (not just "as we know it" as in N&T or TOXICity).

And you're right that the director's cut with the expected harem ending isn't out yet, but I think it'd be worth a play anyway--I went in wanting the harem ending, but by the time I finished one of the endings, that desire was pretty well gone. But everyone--you as the player, the MC, and all of the LIs--gets to deal with a good bit of loss, in one form or another.

 

[JMan9200]

I don't think I'd describe TID that way, although it's hard to categorize--it's almost like "Touched by an Angel" but without Michael Landon and Roma Downey (and I think MC there even says as much). Oh, and it's literally the end of the world (not just "as we know it" as in N&T or TOXICity).

And you're right that the director's cut with the expected harem ending isn't out yet, but I think it'd be worth a play anyway--I went in wanting the harem ending, but by the time I finished one of the endings, that desire was pretty well gone. But everyone--you as the player, the MC, and all of the LIs--gets to deal with a good bit of loss, in one form or another.

Good to know. I have a lot of other games in my backlog to get to, so I don't mind waiting, but I'm glad that it's still worth playing even now. I just tend to prefer playing games like this with the sole intention of aiming for the harem endings. I don't like leaving LIs behind in general when the option to end with all of them exists.

 

[danb35]

I just tend to prefer playing games like this with the sole intention of aiming for the harem endings.

I generally do as well--but the solo endings for TID are very emotionally satisfying (for me, obviously), and I don't know that the harem would be. And you can certainly play (as I did) to a certain decision point, save, and then see whichever solo ending(s) you want. But further discussion of that should probably be on its own thread.

 

[PaxHadrian17]

I generally do as well--but the solo endings for TID are very emotionally satisfying (for me, obviously), and I don't know that the harem would be. And you can certainly play (as I did) to a certain decision point, save, and then see whichever solo ending(s) you want. But further discussion of that should probably be on its own thread.

I liked the character development in N&T and the bonding with Carol, Naomi, Sydney and Julie was nicely done.

TID was a strange mix of an AVN for me.

It had a larger cast then N&T (And TOXICity as well) but the journey, especially with the goodbye's, became more personal.

Losing someone to a zombie or bandit attack was hard but part of that broken world and something I could relate to, given RL experiences.

I am just not built to say goodbye to woman after woman that I have helped and gotten to know/care about.

Intentionally doing the right thing/the necessary thing I understand and accept intellectually, but IMO the stories of most of the women were so well told that I could have fallen for a number of them at different times in my own life, making the repeated goodbyes hit the heart harder than the vast majority of AVNs do.

Kinderfeld delivers stories that I want to spend hours enjoying and getting immersed in and this is certainly the season to revisit one or both of the two completed AVNs.

A replay of N&T is currently taking up some of my quality time with another replay and zombies/a broken world fit the Halloween theme for me.

Cheers!!

 

[danb35]

I liked the character development in N&T and the bonding with Carol, Naomi, Sydney and Julie was nicely done.

Agreed. And I'd even add Alice to that list--she definitely isn't my favorite, but she grew on me quite a bit. Hana? The jury's still out on her, though I haven't quite finished yet.

MC could stand a little more self-awareness with the relationships, though. Carol is obviously his #1, and it's entirely reasonable that she be so. She's his daughter (I know several adoptive parents--they never lead with "this is my adopted daughter"), ffs--of course he's going to love and care for her more than for her best friend, or her best friend's mom, or a couple of girls they picked up along the way. The only one, IMO, that might reasonably challenge her is Julie. So why then does MC act like they're all on the same level? He tells Naomi she isn't second to anyone, but she knows better--and she's fine with that (as long as she isn't second to Alice).

making the repeated goodbyes hit the heart harder than the vast majority of AVNs do.

True--which is why I said above that you as the player have to deal with a good bit of loss. The story's written well enough that when it's time, you feel like it's time, so it was easier than I'd expected to send most of them on (though a couple, like Kara, were surprisingly harder). But that is, I think, a big part of what makes the endings so emotionally satisfying--you get to enjoy the relationship you've built. Just like MC told Mira he wanted to at the cafe.

 

[JMan9200]

MC could stand a little more self-awareness with the relationships, though. Carol is obviously his #1, and it's entirely reasonable that she be so. She's his daughter (I know several adoptive parents--they never lead with "this is my adopted daughter"), ffs--of course he's going to love and care for her more than for her best friend, or her best friend's mom, or a couple of girls they picked up along the way. The only one, IMO, that might reasonably challenge her is Julie. So why then does MC act like they're all on the same level? He tells Naomi she isn't second to anyone, but she knows better--and she's fine with that (as long as she isn't second to Alice).

I haven't gotten to that dialogue point yet for Naomi, but I saw it ahead in the guide. I think this is one of those things where for a lot of harem/poly fans out there, myself included, this goes back to the issue with ranking love interests once they become love interests. Like the MC, or Jack, I kept that name for him, once he becomes a lover to one of the women (where they say "I love you" to each other), I'm of the mindset that he isn't going to ever choose between them again. This is probably what he means when saying that Naomi isn't second to anyone because she shouldn't be once they do become lovers. She's Carol's equal. Otherwise, the MC is basically saying, "yeah, I love you almost as much as this other girl" and that just comes across worse to me. I understand in reality people might act that way or have favorites or people they love more than others and whatnot which maybe is the idea there, but in most other harem media I've come across, it just reads better when the love interests all end up on equal footing. That's how I'm approaching it or hoping to approach it anyway, regardless of this forced main lover distinction lol.

Now of course with this game and its many options you can also pick that line on a route where you actually just want Naomi to be your lover in the end and nobody else and mean it that way instead, or you are trying to really make clear distinctions between love interests, but I agree that going down that route would feel out of place too, especially in the context of replacing early love interests with later ones. Even calling Carol his daughter, I don't find overly realistic, especially at that later point in the story, because to me the idea here is that while they were family in a nontraditional sense, and he was her guardian for some time, it appears more that Carol always liked him in a romantic sense seemingly from the get go and never viewed him quite like that. For his part, the world ending kind of gave way to letting go of old structures and seeing what could happen or allowing him to feel things he might have otherwise held back on, and Carol too for that matter. If the game truly left all that up to choice though, it would not force you into a romantic relationship with Carol in the beginning because even trying to get out of it later seems so OOC for everyone involved to do.

 

[danb35]

Even calling Carol his daughter, I don't find overly realistic,

Completely realistic, because that's what she is. OK, I don't know tons of adoptive parents, but I know more than a few. And without exception, their kids (whether adopted or biological) are "their kids." Discussion may get into the kids being adopted, but I've never heard an adoptive parent lead off with "this is my adopted son/daughter." So why does MC do it? Well, to soften the "...who's also my lover" seems like an obvious guess.

the world ending kind of gave way to letting go of old structures and seeing what could happen

I wish MC had stuck with that in his explanations of their relationship--but he always felt the need to add something like, "besides, might as well take pleasure where you can find it," which really (IMO) cheapens the relationship.

 

[ViperDevlin44]

my only issue is the death of emmie it just feels pointless to kill her off its not like it served a greater purpose

 

[danb35]

its not like it served a greater purpose

It got MC and Julie together. They knew each other, of course, and there was some attraction there. But without that, she doesn't get drunk at the hotel bar, and neither does MC. Thus, no sex that night, nor the next morning. And thus, even if she feels the need to leave the compound, she isn't heading for the Marshland Place.

 

[Raziel_8]

It got MC and Julie together. They knew each other, of course, and there was some attraction there. But without that, she doesn't get drunk at the hotel bar, and neither does MC. Thus, no sex that night, nor the next morning. And thus, even if she feels the need to leave the compound, she isn't heading for the Marshland Place.

What are you talking about ?
Emmie was much later in the story, the little girl which got bitten, the granddaughter of the sheriff. It had nothing to do with the MC and Julie getting together, or Julie's decision to leave the compound.

 

[danb35]

What are you talking about ?

Someone else's death, obviously--the social worker who worked Carol's adoption, whose name for some reason I'd thought was Emmie (and I now remember it was Missy). Her death had the effect I stated (among others), but I was thinking of completely the wrong person.

 

[JMan9200]

Completely realistic, because that's what she is. OK, I don't know tons of adoptive parents, but I know more than a few. And without exception, their kids (whether adopted or biological) are "their kids." Discussion may get into the kids being adopted, but I've never heard an adoptive parent lead off with "this is my adopted son/daughter." So why does MC do it? Well, to soften the "...who's also my lover" seems like an obvious guess.

I wish MC had stuck with that in his explanations of their relationship--but he always felt the need to add something like, "besides, might as well take pleasure where you can find it," which really (IMO) cheapens the relationship.

For the realistic part, I just mean in the context of the MC's case based on this story, and how it developed to the point I'm up to (chapter 13-14). I know in reality adoptive parents of course consider themselves parents for sure.

But yeah I can absolutely see why he would emphasize the fact that she was adopted in later conversations with other characters. I'm just more speaking to the idea that I don't think the MC ever fully embraced that he was her "father" completely, which probably helped both of them further justify how their relationship changed after the pandemic because they never fully embrace that father-daughter familial relationship. Like Carol was raised by the MC in her teenage years, but doesn't seriously call the MC her dad, that kind of thing. Compare that to Naomi and how she views her parents and it's abundantly clear who she considers mom and dad. But I do agree that it would also be nice if they did mention more of the old societal structures being dead too, because why should anyone care about something like that at this point?

Anyway, maybe I'm just reading too much into it and going off of vibes or whatnot, and again this is all only based on my single in-progress half playthrough so far with the choices I've made. I know the dialogue has a ton of variations even for the superfluous choices I've tried out and backtracked on, just to see. There's a lot of ways things could go.

 

[danb35]

But I do agree that it would also be nice if they did mention more of the old societal structures being dead too, because why should anyone care about something like that at this point?

I mean, MC's had to explain the relationship a few times--to Naomi, Sydney, and Hana, at least. And it's pretty much the same explanation every time (so points for consistency, I guess): (1) we love each other, and the societal structures are dead, so who cares; and (2) the world's all gone to shit, so we might as well take pleasure when and where we can find it. The second isn't wrong, necessarily, but it really feels like it cheapens the "we love each other, and who's to say we can't do that now?" The first is owning it; the second is apologizing for it. Own it, MC.

But I continue to believe that Carol is and will always be MC's #1. As further evidence, I consider what Hana told MC when she wanted him: "I talked with Carol, since she's the Queen Bee, and she said it was OK." We don't have to trust Hana's perceptions, of course, but that she sees it that way is notable. More notable is that MC accepts it. Leaving aside whether he should have believed Hana, "Carol said it was OK" was all he needed. He didn't ask about Naomi or Alice; Carol was OK, and that was enough.

And I guess we could quibble about what "give it all up" means, but I think Carol knows where she stands:

 

[JMan9200]

I mean, MC's had to explain the relationship a few times--to Naomi, Sydney, and Hana, at least. And it's pretty much the same explanation every time (so points for consistency, I guess): (1) we love each other, and the societal structures are dead, so who cares; and (2) the world's all gone to shit, so we might as well take pleasure when and where we can find it. The second isn't wrong, necessarily, but it really feels like it cheapens the "we love each other, and who's to say we can't do that now?" The first is owning it; the second is apologizing for it. Own it, MC.

But I continue to believe that Carol is and will always be MC's #1. As further evidence, I consider what Hana told MC when she wanted him: "I talked with Carol, since she's the Queen Bee, and she said it was OK." We don't have to trust Hana's perceptions, of course, but that she sees it that way is notable. More notable is that MC accepts it. Leaving aside whether he should have believed Hana, "Carol said it was OK" was all he needed. He didn't ask about Naomi or Alice; Carol was OK, and that was enough.

And I guess we could quibble about what "give it all up" means, but I think Carol knows where she stands:
View attachment 5351857

Got it. This is some good insight for later. I haven't gotten to this point yet, but yeah I get what you're saying. Carol to me is absolutely what you see in a lot of anime/manga/haremlit as the "first girl" or sometimes called the "legal wife" or "head wife/head of the harem." So for sure if Carol in the beginning took the stance that MC can't be with anyone else, or rejected a LI or put more limits in place we'd be playing a very different game. But since she was open to Naomi and then Naomi makes it clear to Sydney that Carol's approval is necessary before MC does anything with her, it definitely makes sense that she's that last door any new LI needs to get through. I just think that when they do all become official lovers later on (for those that do besides Carol i.e. Naomi, Sydney, etc.), the MC isn't going to start choosing between any of them at that point, but I'll have to see how it all plays out in the end to get a better idea.

To give a parallel to better explain it, since I just realized we're both also recently active in the Cosy Cafe thread, Carol is like the Lucy of that game here. However, I also think and hope that once each girl becomes part of the harem, they're all on the same playing field, like Vicky, Sarah, and so on become in that game. They are very different games though, so lots of nuance separates them, but in my idealized version of a harem ending, it's a good example.

This is also just how I probably would imagine an advanced epilogue of N&T if the game never actually says this outright too lol. Like I know both Carol and Sydney could end up pregnant for example, so I can't see a scenario where MC is just leaving Sydney out randomly years later because Carol changes her mind one day, as important as her approval was early on, there comes a point where the LIs do or should become equals in my opinion.

Anyway, with all the choice deviations there are so many ways it can play out and one random early decision could probably change a whole convo chapters later so everyone is going to get some variations in their playthrough either way.