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

[BorgiaBou]

Please educate yourself and learn what game development entails. Your complaints not only come from ignorance, they're not even remotely constructive. Yeah, right, rewriting 20+ scripts of 10000 - 30000 lines each is much easier than improving only 9./s That's apparently why GGGB got post-completion revisions, bug fixes and improvements (it didn't). You either do what you've planned ASAP or you don't do it at all, because later it will be such a huge undertaking, it'll take another year or more to finish which isn't worth it.

Yes mr. lawyer you right... so when new update?

 

[Moryaka26]

Yes mr. lawyer you right... so when new update?

When it"s ready

 

[Deleted member 1174349]

You do realize that the person that actually needs to feel satisfied in the first place with the work itself is the author, right? I can understand the frustration, but I think you like some others seem to think that this is all about you and forget that the person who's actually writting this needs to enjoy the process, otherwise it starts to feel like a drag. I'm pretty sure people who make this sort of comments have never been involved in any kind of creative process, because if they did they'd know that this is actually something normal. I can speak from personal experience because I've done quite a bit of writting a few good years ago and I can tell you I lost count of the amount of times I had to go back and re-write something along way because I felt I needed to change something, as things weren't progressing like I wanted to. Also, when I played guitar in some of the bands I had we sometines spent months re-arranging the same 2 or 3 songs until we felt pleased with the final result. This is a common place to writers, musicians, designers, etc.

I think that's the correct mindset when you directly finance independant people like on patreon. Platforms like patreon are to put emphasis on the creator, not really what they're doing.

Yeah sure you get a product at the end, you get rewards, access to specific stuff or just access to the regular stuff in advance. But if you're spending money on patreon, it's probably because you enjoy the people and their creative process. You want to help them accomplish what they feel is right and good. What you're probably looking for on patreon is stuff and people you don't find or hear about in more mainstream media or streamlined chains of distribution. You shouldn't feel entitled to something because you give money to an independant creator on the internet. Yes, it's legitimate to think that way. "Vote with your money" and all that stuff I guess. But I don't think that's healthy, for anyone.

You came by your choice, and when you feel that's not worth your money anymore you go away and find stuff that you feel is more worthy of your money. That's fine. But don't be a bitch about it. It's not like you paid a 70 dollars game that's not functionning and needs multiple Gb of patch to fix everything. It's an independant creator with a small team on an ongoing process, they will inevitably have some setbacks. You implicitly signed for it when you decided to support an indie dev working in their room. Even huge companies have setbacks and delays too. Stuff happens.

You're not talking about a faceless company on patreon. You're talking about an individual. Just be mindful.

That's why even experienced writers finish the storyline first, and then the actual development process begins. Burnout can hit you like a truck out of nowhere. It surprised me when I learned that EvaKiss has been winging the writing all this time. I guess it finally caught up to her.

I'm a game developer at a big studio. The process you're talking about, storyline first and then dev, is an ideal one that actually is never really found in practice, or maybe rarely. It's like saying "first we'll do all the game and level design, and then we'll start the real dev".

There's obviously an order when you're working on a game. You can't implement a feature when it's not designed. But as much as I would like to have a feature spec coming on my desk, all figured out, I implement it, it's working, and then we go on to the next thing, that can't happen. Game dev is inherently iterative. Stuff thats sounds good on paper maybe aren't good when playing. And sometimes when you're playing you find good stuff that you haven't thought about during the design process. Sometimes a bug can create something so interesting that a feature comes out of it!

And I don't even talk about resources management. If you wait for the story and the design to be finished, what are all of your dev doing in the meantime? If you aren't doing multiple projects at the same time like DLCs or something to occupy them, there is a point where you can't rework stuff anymore. You need directions, you need to test, to prototype.
I've worked on many features, some of them were killed because they weren't interesting, story kept changing during development and levels had to be redone. That's how game dev goes.

The difference between a "traditional" studio and an indepent creator on social media and platform like patreon, is that all of this iterative mess is happening behind closed doors in a studio. They announce something, show a trailer or a gameplay footage, then go back for many months to do the dirty work that needs to be done, and then show something that it worth showing again. You don't see anything that's happening in the studio. You don't see the frustration, you don't see people getting ill, you don't see the burnouts, you don't see the doubts of the dev when they question everything at one point, or when they're stuck and don't know what to do.

When you're supporting an independant creator on the internet, one of the selling point is to have a "closer" relationship with them. You can talk with them, learn how they work, you have regular updates (even monthly updates are regular in gamedev world). You have the "chance" to see all of the behind the doors stuff. Many doesn't know how it works and it can be interesting.

And again, you're talking with an individual, not with a faceless company. The company can "hide" all the "dirty" uninteresting work related stuff, they chose not to talk about it. When you're with an independant, even more when they consider themselves somewhat of an author, you can't really dissociate the project they're working on and themselves. When they're sick, it's important. When they don't feel like they're doing a good job and aren't satisfied, it's important.

PS: After rereading I realised my tone may be perceived as harsh. It's not my intention. I completely agree with the people I quoted, I'm not answering "against them" or whatever, I just wanted to add stuff.

PS 2: About the second quote, I realised again after rereading that they may be specifically talking about visual novel, whereas I have a more general/standard game dev background. What they said may be true, I don't know I never worked on a visual novel, but I can see it happening as in its simplest form a visual novel is "just" an interactive story with visuals. There aren't any gameplay systems or mechanics that needs to be defined, tested, polished, maybe reworked etc.

 

[xgrotesc]

PS: After rereading I realised my tone may be perceived as harsh. It's not my intention. I completely agree with the people I quoted, I'm not answering "against them" or whatever, I just wanted to add stuff.

PS 2: About the second quote, I realised again after rereading that they may be specifically talking about visual novel, whereas I have a more general/standard game dev background. What they said may be true, I don't know I never worked on a visual novel, but I can see it happening as in its simplest form a visual novel is "just" an interactive story with visuals. There aren't any gameplay systems or mechanics that needs to be defined, tested, polished, maybe reworked etc.

Regarding my quote no offense whatsoever, I actually think your whole post just puts more emphasis on what I tried to explain here regarding creative process.

As for your quote from bauman, I don't claim to know how Eva's process works, but I find it highly unlikely it could work the way he suggested it, because like you pointed out, this is a small independent creator, who's now doing her second VN. To do what bauman suggested that would mean that Eva would have to just been writing ORS for probably like a year after finishing the work on GGGB. That's simply not viable. Plus, like you so well pointed out, that kind of thing doesn't really seem to be a good idea, because it will make the project quite rigid in the long run. This is a fluid kind of work, so if you only write the story before, later the mechanics you want to implement may not work as you want them to and you'll spend an even bigger amount of time re-writing. I think bauman's suggestion might work on something like television or cinema, but not on a game/VN/interactive story.

 

[DatBoit]

Eh, I think there are plenty of reasons be worried about the tendencies we are seeing from Eva. She is by no means a milker, but it is not exactly a good sign when developers need to go back an re-work large parts of the game because they didn't turn out as they had hoped. This is also not the first time she has done this for ORS, although it is the first re-work which is rather significant.

I think it indicates poor planning on her part. While there certainly is value in keeping the development of the game flexible, not having any idea of what is going to be included in what episode, or not knowing what the role of each character is going to be, and how they are going to develop, are quite large oversights. Having a clear timeline for the entire game and a somewhat established structure for each episode is probably advisable, as you can work more goal-oriented and avoid situations where you don't know what to do, situations which it seems Eva has sometimes faced.

It also synergizes really poorly with all the decisions she is making for ORS. She includes two main characters, which in itself ought to double the work you need to do if keeping the amount of content the same. Additionally, given the branching nature of Eva's games, having two main characters likely increase the complexity a lot, as you not only have to navigate how the characters that belong on primarily one side of the story relate to each other, but also how these characters in turn relate to the ones on mainly the other side of it.

Before the last update, we also saw another worrying sign - giving a loose approximation of when the update might be finished, and then missing that by an entire month. The update times are already 2-3x longer, so it is not exactly promising when time has to be spent on re-working large portions of the story and Eva is talking about feeling burnt out (especially when she recently took a break).

I am not worried about the game's continuation in general, as I believe Eva is far too professional to abandon it or fall into never-ending development cycles, but there is certainly reason to be worried about the frequency in which updates are going to get released. And unlike a 3D game where five months of development time can equate to 4000 new images, a 2D cannot. Eva should probably consider taking a step back and seriously consider the scope of, and what she is doing, with this game, as there are indications that things may be getting out of hand very quickly.

 

[atrebor68]

Please, I lost a lot of discussions, someone with a good heart can write a quick recap of what is happening with this game ? Are we losing it ?

 

[Solomon Grundy]

Please, I lost a lot of discussions, someone with a good heart can write a quick recap of what is happening with this game ? Are we losing it ?

Eva announced she is going to go back and revamp Stan and redo some other elements from chapters 1 through 9 before moving on with the story, and a handful of people are losing their damn minds over it. That's the short recap.

 

[Osodrac13]

OMG, what kind of loser cares about Stan?

 

[TheUnforeseenMessenger]

Eh, I think there are plenty of reasons be worried about the tendencies we are seeing from Eva. She is by no means a milker, but it is not exactly a good sign when developers need to go back an re-work large parts of the game because they didn't turn out as they had hoped. This is also not the first time she has done this for ORS, although it is the first re-work which is rather significant.

I think it indicates poor planning on her part. While there certainly is value in keeping the development of the game flexible, not having any idea of what is going to be included in what episode, or not knowing what the role of each character is going to be, and how they are going to develop, are quite large oversights. Having a clear timeline for the entire game and a somewhat established structure for each episode is probably advisable, as you can work more goal-oriented and avoid situations where you don't know what to do, situations which it seems Eva has sometimes faced.

It also synergizes really poorly with all the decisions she is making for ORS. She includes two main characters, which in itself ought to double the work you need to do if keeping the amount of content the same. Additionally, given the branching nature of Eva's games, having two main characters likely increase the complexity a lot, as you not only have to navigate how the characters that belong on primarily one side of the story relate to each other, but also how these characters in turn relate to the ones on mainly the other side of it.

Before the last update, we also saw another worrying sign - giving a loose approximation of when the update might be finished, and then missing that by an entire month. The update times are already 2-3x longer, so it is not exactly promising when time has to be spent on re-working large portions of the story and Eva is talking about feeling burnt out (especially when she recently took a break).

I am not worried about the game's continuation in general, as I believe Eva is far too professional to abandon it or fall into never-ending development cycles, but there is certainly reason to be worried about the frequency in which updates are going to get released. And unlike a 3D game where five months of development time can equate to 4000 new images, a 2D cannot. Eva should probably consider taking a step back and seriously consider the scope of, and what she is doing, with this game, as there are indications that things may be getting out of hand very quickly.

"Poor planning" is probably the laziest way of describing setbacks in a professional world, whether that be gaming or something else.

Planning involves planning for failure too. Planning is not simply seeing something go from A to Z. There are so many intricacies to how you do something that failure is an inevitable process. The fact that she's wanting to go back and re-do her stuff is her prerogative. Ideas come and go, after all. She is not a machine. And because of that, in order to make something go a certain direction, certain rewrites might happen, which in turn lead to a satisfactory ending. Satisfactory is subjective - to whom are the changes satisfying?

No matter how good you plan something, you can never plan everything out to a tee. I think your post was a pretty poor take.

 

[bauman]

Please, I lost a lot of discussions, someone with a good heart can write a quick recap of what is happening with this game ? Are we losing it ?

Eva Kiss shared that the game's development has been slow because of burnout and personal issues.

 

[MadMooseMan]

Still kinda stuck on this scene. Could really use some help so I can finish playing.





I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.

While running game code:
Exception: Switch could not choose a displayable.

-- Full Traceback ------------------------------------------------------------

Full traceback:
File "scripts/story/chapter9_axel.rpyc", line 134, in script
File "renpy/ast.py", line 1397, in execute
renpy.exports.with_statement(trans, paired)
File "renpy/exports.py", line 1646, in with_statement
return renpy.game.interface.do_with(trans, paired, clear=clear)
File "renpy/display/core.py", line 2610, in do_with
clear=clear)
File "renpy/display/core.py", line 3101, in interact
repeat, rv = self.interact_core(preloads=preloads, trans_pause=trans_pause, pause=pause, pause_start=pause_start, **kwargs)
File "renpy/display/core.py", line 3611, in interact_core
self.draw_screen(root_widget, fullscreen_video, (not fullscreen_video) or video_frame_drawn)
File "renpy/display/core.py", line 2441, in draw_screen
renpy.config.screen_height,
File "render.pyx", line 492, in renpy.display.render.render_screen
File "render.pyx", line 263, in renpy.display.render.render
File "renpy/display/layout.py", line 777, in render
surf = render(child, width, height, cst, cat)
File "render.pyx", line 170, in renpy.display.render.render
File "render.pyx", line 263, in renpy.display.render.render
File "renpy/display/transition.py", line 368, in render
top = render(self.new_widget, width, height, st, at)
File "render.pyx", line 170, in renpy.display.render.render
File "render.pyx", line 263, in renpy.display.render.render
File "renpy/display/layout.py", line 777, in render
surf = render(child, width, height, cst, cat)
File "render.pyx", line 170, in renpy.display.render.render
File "render.pyx", line 263, in renpy.display.render.render
File "renpy/display/layout.py", line 777, in render
surf = render(child, width, height, cst, cat)
File "render.pyx", line 170, in renpy.display.render.render
File "render.pyx", line 263, in renpy.display.render.render
File "renpy/display/transform.py", line 933, in render
return transform_render(self, width, height, st, at)
File "accelerator.pyx", line 116, in renpy.display.accelerator.transform_render
File "render.pyx", line 263, in renpy.display.render.render
File "renpy/display/image.py", line 501, in render
return wrap_render(self.target, width, height, st, at)
File "renpy/display/image.py", line 307, in wrap_render
rend = render(child, w, h, st, at)
File "render.pyx", line 170, in renpy.display.render.render
File "render.pyx", line 263, in renpy.display.render.render
File "renpy/display/layout.py", line 777, in render
surf = render(child, width, height, cst, cat)
File "render.pyx", line 170, in renpy.display.render.render
File "render.pyx", line 263, in renpy.display.render.render
File "renpy/display/layout.py", line 339, in render
surf = render(self.child, width, height, st, at)
File "render.pyx", line 170, in renpy.display.render.render
File "render.pyx", line 263, in renpy.display.render.render
File "renpy/display/layout.py", line 339, in render
surf = render(self.child, width, height, st, at)
File "render.pyx", line 170, in renpy.display.render.render
File "render.pyx", line 263, in renpy.display.render.render
File "renpy/display/layout.py", line 1358, in render
self.update(st, at)
File "renpy/display/layout.py", line 1336, in update
child, redraw = self.function(st, at, *self.args, **self.kwargs)
File "renpy/display/layout.py", line 1416, in condition_switch_show
return condition_switch_pick(switch), None
File "renpy/display/layout.py", line 1412, in condition_switch_pick
raise Exception("Switch could not choose a displayable.")
Exception: Switch could not choose a displayable.

Windows-10-10.0.19041
Ren'Py 7.4.4.1439
Our Red String v0.9
Tue Dec 7 12:14:41 2021

 

[jamiroq]

IIRC Eva described herself as a gardener-type writer, so problems like her with the Stan character wasn't that unlikely to happen. If you let something you don't feel is right grow on it's own without molding it's path, trimming it occasionally and weaving it with other plants/structures to provide support for both (like an architect would - to stick with the writer type dychotomy) you sometimes find yourself in a pickle like this. GRRM got himself an extreme case of this problem, where his characters became more important than the story itself (which in turn, was taken to ridiculuos ends by Game of Thrones show-writers).
Not to worry though, Eva's case of this issue is a rather mild one. It will reoccur in one way or another as a consequence of her writing process, so just keep that in mind for your own sake.

PS. Although I personally would like to see more memes about this. Have some fun guys, instead of sombre camplaining.

 

[goldenface]

I feel like Ian should be more jazzed about getting a girl like Lena

 

[Homemade]

Hi, first time posting here and after playing so many adult games, I have found this masterpiece of a game. I have played GGGB and I don't like playing as a female MC, because these games tend to focus on the corruption of female lead which I don't like but when I tried different routes, I must say this is the kinkiest game and the writing is great you can play your character as you like. I am that type of a person if I start a game I like to play all the routes and see all the contents that are in the game. I was lucky when I found GGGB the first time it was completed. I still like to play this game often and end up finding new content.

When I find this game I was happy that I can play Male MC So I did not mind that much and started playing this game.
Ian, Male Mc Scarred Hero, which I immediately connected with not the Scarred part but his personality traits as a musician who also draws and wanted to be a writer. A sensitive guy who had been cheated on and now it is up to us to guide him out of his past trauma, and looks-wise I am more like Ian in real life except black hair, and in my teenage years, I was a nerd who drew a lot, I wanted to become an artist but it did not happen due to my dad not liking this thing. I end up abandoning my passion and graduated in business commerce which was not my passion, hey but I got a good job, and sometimes in my spare time I draw. But let us get back to Ian he is not abandoning his passion to become a writer, even if it meant going against his father wishes that alone is the one quality I admire him for even he has not found any success in it, but he has not given up and I will make my damn sure he succeeds. I have read this forum and a lot of people say Ian is a beta male character but if he was a beta male he would not break up with Gillian after finding she was cheating on him that's not a beta male. I know u can mold Ian as how u want so that's fun also. He also reminds me of Dave Harris from GGGB so that's a plus for me. I got my wish to play a Male protagonist with Eva Kiss's brilliant writing, but U have to play with Female MC Lena you can not only play with one of them, you have to play both of them which is a unique thing, a Dual protagonist game.

I did play a lot of AVN but always there is one protagonist, if you are a male u can have sex with all-female characters, and yea you have a Mega cock to rule them all. If you are playing as a female, there will be corruption and you will turn into a slut. In ORS that's not the case, Ian has not the biggest dick in the game at least that's the part I like, it makes him a more believable character, but he can be a Dik to others. All-female NPC will not wait for U in this game to conquer them, they have their own life which does not revolve around the male lead.

In Lena's point of view, it's basically a corruption story but it also has a different feel to it. Personality-wise Lena is not a blank slate character but she has some emotional baggage as well. It's a tale about these two and their choices impact each other both and the characters around them.

All other NPC characters are believable and have different personalities. Except for the male NPC on Lena's side, oh "Goddess" Eva" have mercy on Lena's soul.

But the character I personally don't like is Axel. The dude has some serious issues as well, and this chapter with Lena confirms it. He is a guy that thinks he owns Lena, that she is only his while it may be true in just body, but it may not be true emotionally. He is the type of guy who always puts his satisfaction above their partner. I bet he fucked Lena many times and in-process mold Lena according to his desires, and during all their relationship he fucked her body many many times he owns her in his mind, but he did not make love to Lena once. Axels type are all girls like to fuck for only his appearance alone, but if they get close to his type of crazy well it's on them not on Axel, Even in my friend path with Lena, he was annoyed that Lena made new friends, well in my opinion if Lena kept Ivy as her only friend, she needs new friends like Ian's friend group and cute holly as well.

Sorry for the long essay. I will write my review about this game after I will buy this game on steam as soon as it is released, and pay Eva at least something for her effort. And I am not going to complain about how much time it will take. I don't mind even if it will take 4-6 months, I am not paying her even if I was her Patreon, I will not complain about the next update or revamp for v0.9 because the quality of this game is above others.

ORS and summers gone are my top two favorite games, and I hope Evas Patreon grows more and more and I would like to thank Pilot Lara, BloodyMares for his walkthrough and being a part of this community, and helping this game to become more amazing and bug-free even I don't use the walkthrough, but man I appreciate your efforts as well Evas. At the end of the day, I am a pirate leecher so I don't have to complain about it while playing this amazing game freely from leeching.

 

[Solomon Grundy]

Okay, so, I saw the profile pic of the above post, immediately assumed the post was from BloodyMares, read the first sentence and went, "wait... hol up, what?!" True Story.

 

[BloodyMares]

snip

Oh no, a doppelganger. I guess it's time for me to change my profile pic...

Seriously though, welcome aboard, appreciate the kind words One thing though, you might want to separate your text into more sentences. It was challenging to read so many words in a row with very few stops in between

 

[Homemade]

NO don't I will change my profile pic and I don't like to write in English because it's the 4th language I spoke and it's hard for me to convey my thoughts in English writing. I find speaking English easy than writing so that's the main reason I don't like to write in English but I love writing in my mother tongue. U guys will not See my reply to anyone anymore but I will give reactions because I genuinely love this game.

 

[atrebor68]

Eva Kiss shared that the game's development has been slow because of burnout and personal issues.

Ah. So sad.

 

[Roderick2]

I am lost between 999 saves without a clue of what I did in each step.

Just sharing.

 

[Hongfire Survivor]

Man, I hope Jeremy will be a wingman for once.

I let him have Allison, help him get Emma, doesn't stop Lena (kinda, it is up to you*)

Like damn bro, give ME a lay up! Ok cool, you'll keep Cindy a secret, but don't get sanctimonious with me

Just gives me a high five and plows them off screen.


Smh.