VN Ren'Py Our Red String [Ch. 13.1 BETA] [Eva Kiss]

[Deleted member 3064965]

Speed comes down to two major factors now: Money and trust (well, and planning of course, but I wanted to simplify). If Eva can find a line-work artist who she can communicate with well with and whose style she has faith in, that's where the trust comes in. Artwise, she can still select and edit/collage the photos she wants to use + dictate the tone, mood and style of the art produced, as she somewhat does now with the colorer she uses.

The money factor comes into paying for the right lineworker talented enough as well as paying for a full-time coder, full-time production manager (including coordinating marketing, legal, business communication (with steam, ect) and day-to-day with freelance staff), a full-time paid QA lead who can also pick up slack elsewhere as needed (maybe one who's a proficient writer, to clean-up disjointed path text + potentially help her look for reference photos from her set specifications), plus the purchasing of game assets (like better music, sound effects).

With 3-4 trusted, proficient full-time staff members and a few talented freelancers, I can see the game slice at least 2/5 to potentially over half off development time for each update for updates roughly every 3 months or less, with better overall quality too. Giving guidance, Eva could still have full creative control. But she'd have to trust the staff enough to take over the day-to-day minutia so she can focus almost 100% on storylines and creative direction. Creative direction: Just because others are doing the actual linework and coloring doesn't mean she needs to accept whatever output they turn in. "This expression is a little off. If you could just... What I had in mind was.. The overall ___ should be.." And yeah. She'd probably have some time to still sketch some key scenes herself if a certain scene was "hands off. mine" or just something hard to communicate.

Of course, relinquishing some of the minute control may be hard for her as her background is primarily as an artist.

Yeah, this is a good breakdown and all of it seems like possible improvements to make. I admit I have no clue how much it could effect their income to release the game on Steam, but hopefully it could gradually help making some of these improvements possible. I suspect Eva's games will struggle to reach the same popularity as DarkCookie and others either way (too much plot, not enough petite women with G cup breasts), but then again you don't need 75k a month to hire some more help either. And from experience it seems like Eva prefers putting additional money back into the project instead of cashing in on it.

As you mentioned, it might also (understandably) be an issue to give away some of the minute control of the project — both because she's originally an artist, and because I imagine it would be a lot harder when you've already made games for several years almost exclusively yourself.

 

[Deleted member 3064965]

Hey folks! I was playing around with HTML and decided to create a very simple "Build a Lena" page

You can scroll through the different face expressions, try many different clothes and so on.

View attachment 1688800 View attachment 1688804

If anyone wants to try it, feel free:

You must be registered to see the links

And let me know if you liked it or not. I have other fan-made projects like this, based on the game.

Cheers!

I like the fact that "ornaments" in this context really is just a fancy word for "cum".

Played around with this, and I'm pretty sure we've already seen all of Lena's facial expressions in the game, except one: the crying one. That's on you, future chad Ian!

 

[grima_grima]

I like the fact that "ornaments" in this context really is just a fancy word for "cum".

Played around with this, and I'm pretty sure we've already seen all of Lena's facial expressions in the game, except one: the crying one. That's on you, future chad Ian!

Well, don't forget the eye painting is also an ornament, and I was not sure how to call those 3 items otherwise

 

[Tallyhoe]

Just to be clear. This is the difference...

View attachment 1691286 View attachment 1691288

And this is just from patreon, not including steam.

 

[darkrage6]

I really don't get this weird trend where people generalize from what they've experienced with one developer as if it's a rule that necessarily applies to every other developer and game. Sure, there's some limits to what you can include when the game goes on Steam, but the same applies to Patreon. And stuff like incest never seemed likely to happen in ORS anyway.

While the Steam release means we'll have to wait a few months for the polishing of the first 9 chapters, that was likely to happen at some point anyway. And there's no reason a Steam release now would lead to the coming updates taking longer and longer. As others have pointed out as well, a Steam release will likely mean a lot of new paying customers, which in turn would lead to even higher quality and/or quicker development of the game.

It's the same thing every time there's some kind of delay or if an update takes longer than usual, no matter the reason. It always leads to someone claiming, with excessive confidence, that it means that the developer is a milker or a scammer because that's how the problems started with a completely different game. But the only logical background to use to make predictments for ORS, is Eva Kiss' own history as a developer.

I'm glad a Steam release is coming, maybe then I can actually get it to work on my PC.

 

[XXXVAA]

i mean summertime saga is a good game with way more content than our red string, the art style is different, but both games are great.

 

[fortuna95]

i mean summertime saga is a good game with way more content than our red string, the art style is different, but both games are great.

Yeah, but SSaga isn't ~14x better than ORS!

 

[XXXVAA]

Yeah, but SSaga isn't ~14x better than ORS!

i mean that is a matter of taste, and people will support what they want to support, but i think ORS going to steam is a good thing for EVA and for us because more money means more people working on the game.
that all being said if i had to give one reason on why summertime saga has way more supporters than ORS i would say it's the NPC's all the male NPC's in this game straight up suck and considering most of them have interactions with one or two of the main characters that kinda creaters a bunch of uninteresting interactions.

 

[sztrb]

I meant the comparison to show that while yes, there has been a lot of whinging about the length of time between updates. The difference here is that while Eva has put out a number of considerable updates to the game in the last year. They're working with a much much smaller budget than SSaga, which puts out smaller updates and in the last two years, maybe at best, two updates a year. Considering they earn nearly a million in revenue (before Patreon cuts), I'd argue that they have even less reason to have such sporadic and small updates. I'd say most of the updates that Eva have put out has helped push the story considerably. While SSaga has not.

Don't get me wrong I like both games. There are literally worse games that get a lot more money.

I'd argue these guys are one of the more questionable devs, at least with their constant gaslighting of anyone critical of the game:

Even if they do provide updates on the regular. The game itself is marred in constant re-writes, re-drawings and constant retconning that any save becomes unusable. I've personally given up on them and their game.

I'd argue that Eva has my support even if the updates have not been nearly as regular as we all wish (and mainly because her game, her art and the storyline are so good in comparison to a lot of other patreon based eroge games).

 

[juniorforlife17313]

I meant the comparison to show that while yes, there has been a lot of whinging about the length of time between updates. The difference here is that while Eva has put out a number of considerable updates to the game in the last year. They're working with a much much smaller budget than SSaga, which puts out smaller updates and in the last two years, maybe at best, two updates a year. Considering they earn nearly a million in revenue (before Patreon cuts), I'd argue that they have even less reason to have such sporadic and small updates. I'd say most of the updates that Eva have put out has helped push the story considerably. While SSaga has not.

Don't get me wrong I like both games. There are literally worse games that get a lot more money.

I'd argue these guys are one of the more questionable devs, at least with their constant gaslighting of anyone critical of the game: View attachment 1693011

Even if they do provide updates on the regular. The game itself is marred in constant re-writes, re-drawings and constant retconning that any save becomes unusable. I've personally given up on them and their game.

I'd argue that Eva has my support even if the updates have not been nearly as regular as we all wish (and mainly because her game, her art and the storyline are so good in comparison to a lot of other patreon based eroge games).

Facts. Eva has constant updates while Summer Time is lazy ASF with theirs. Two or three updates a year? Gtfoh their just milking the game unlike Eva who I respect more for finishing games like GGGB

 

[Hongfire Survivor]

Even if they do provide updates on the regular. The game itself is marred in constant re-writes, re-drawings and constant retconning that any save becomes unusable. I've personally given up on them and their game.

Think I had one save that didn't work but I agree with the constant redrawings.

It looks like they are trying to save money and hired someone else to draw the sex scenes. They look alot less detailed than the previous person's work and it really really shows. Now they have them also redoing characters and I really don't like it.

Kinda killed the game for me.

Out of most of the folks on that sex game list, how many of them put out a game, finished, and added DLC to it?

I have no problems with Eva taking her time, she has earned my trust with action.

 

[Moricano]

Release Date: 2021-11-10

 

[RonWeasleyJr]

Holy Shit balls is Perry one of the most annoying VN characters ever?

The stutter, the hipster ponytail, the fact he can't hold his liquor, the laziness, etc.

I really hope Eva writes him out of the story completely in the next update. Maybe have him get completely humiliated and leave town in disgrace or something.

 

[Mesmerizet]

Holy Shit balls is Perry one of the most annoying VN characters ever?

The stutter, the hipster ponytail, the fact he can't hold his liquor, the laziness, etc.

I really hope Eva writes him out of the story completely in the next update. Maybe have him get completely humiliated and leave town in disgrace or something.

Would be hilarious if Perry walks in on Ian & Emma, loses it, kicks Ian out (or leaves the city) or smth.
I'm not really one for ntr, but I like funny situations like these. Just like Wade finding out about Ian & Cindy.

 

[Tallyhoe]

The hard truth is ORS has female MC and I don't think majority of this type of game target demographic are into it, even though it is main the reason I appreciate ORS much more, just like some RPG game that gives us opportunity to choose to play female MC.

 

[sztrb]

Think I had one save that didn't work but I agree with the constant redrawings.

It looks like they are trying to save money and hired someone else to draw the sex scenes. They look alot less detailed than the previous person's work and it really really shows. Now they have them also redoing characters and I really don't like it.

Kinda killed the game for me.

I think I would still give them a chance, if it wasn't for the fact that the dev takes umbrage at any criticism by telling whoever is critiquing to take a hike.

 

[revvyG]

Who can you actually end up with? I saw a few of the scenes through the mod and it seems like its limited. It looks like Lena only has Ian and maybe Robert? Ian gets Lena and Cindy I think? I like Axel, Mike and Seymour but Axel doesn't get an official sex scene til like the end, Mike it looks like is just a perma FWB and Seymour you never even have sex with. Unless there are actual ending scenes that aren't included in the mod unlike GGGB's mod.

 

[BloodyMares]

While we are waiting for the next updates, I've been keeping myself busy by building this website where I'm extracting the sex scenes and turning them into web pages. I'm still struggling with the layout (I'm a programmer, not an artist), but this is what I have so far (still not ready to be published): View attachment 1695320

When you click the "TBD" links, you'll go the corresponding page, that will look like this:
View attachment 1695324
The "Points of Interest" will be displayed as you discover them by navigating through the story (or if you click its title, where you uncover all PoIs - but that's cheating ). There may be some small changes to some of the stories.

I'll post the link here when this is published. But let me know your feedback, suggestions, comments

Cheers!

I doubt Eva would approve of that. It's one thing to make a character builder because it's fun and all, but ripping sex scenes from the game is something else.

 

[grima_grima]

I doubt Eva would approve of that. It's one thing to make a character builder because it's fun and all, but ripping sex scenes from the game is something else.

Thanks BM, I had not thought about this. I've already deleted my post and will not publish it.

Regards,

 

[dolfe67]

I doubt Eva would approve of that. It's one thing to make a character builder because it's fun and all, but ripping sex scenes from the game is something else.

It's not like we're on a pirate site..