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

[BloodyMares]

This would be so much better if it pointed out what was needed for each girl or guy, than just a how you get points when you dont know which person the points help with.

If you mean Skill points, they are universal and help your overall chances. There is no "Good" or "Bad" balance like in GGGB, and you will need more than one skill to be successful with ANY character.
Your success with a particular character depends on the flags or Event Triggers ie your actual choices and actions. For now, you need to pay attention to which triggers you obtain. Because I'm not a prophet, I can't predict the outcomes of those actions in the moment of writing. If you want me to revise the previous chapters according to what I DO know, then it's in the plans but it's not my #1 priority at the moment.

 

[mehGusta]

If you mean Skill points, they are universal and help your overall chances. There is no "Good" or "Bad" balance like in GGGB, and you will need more than one skill to be successful with ANY character.
Your success with a particular character depends on the flags or Event Triggers ie your actual choices and actions. For now, you need to pay attention to which triggers you obtain. Because I'm not a prophet, I can't predict the outcomes of those actions in the moment of writing. If you want me to revise the previous chapters according to what I DO know, then it's in the plans but it's not my #1 priority at the moment.

i also think this is not really feasible. let's take in GGGB the Eric is in an open relationship with Ashley ending. there are a lot of checks you have to reach to get that, but most importanly is the point where you have to get "tell him about your slutty nature". essentially you have to wear the whore outfit and have 15 good points. not only will it be hard having 15 good points at that point while also wearing the whore outfit, but also you have a multitude of options to get that outfit. sure you could write one way of how to go about, but maybe you have to get scenes that not everybody wants.
so what will it be? one route, that will probably confuse people who still accomplish that without going that one specific route, or trying to actually get every possible route there is?

and so far ORS seems to get even complexer than GGGB is (kind of obvious since you play two MCs). i'm sure at the end of it, you could probably write an essay only on one route

 

[BloodyMares]

and so far ORS seems to get even complexer than GGGB is (kind of obvious since you play two MCs). i'm sure at the end of it, you could probably write an essay only on one route

It's already shaping up to be quite an e-book. It'll easily have over 200 pages when the game is completed.

 

[Alessa Medeiroz]

The art style has vastly improved over good girl gone bad!

Is this gonna be another NTR game?

That is ur choise, isn't it?

 

[Fredrik_ahk]

The vision of the author Evakiss is really grandiouse in scale, I can see that. The previous game was literally perfect in every way and the author will try to surpass himself/herself. And it may be possible in terms of complexity of storyline and different outcomes, but you can't really relate to your 2 main characters becasue of constant jumping between them. I'm sorry but that's a fact. The game would be better if it had only 1 character, but I understand the author wants to grow, improve and try something new. I just hope the next project will be more consistent in terms of pacing.

Perhaps once the game is complete, it could be possible to just play one of the characters and automate the other. Might be fun to have a toggle to set a personality for the automatic character (Default/Random/Chaste/Straight/Bi.. etc. )

That would allow people to focus on one character (A point I totally see!) or for others to set up complex situations by playing both sides, creating chaos or working towards specific goals.

 

[Ragnar]

The vision of the author Evakiss is really grandiouse in scale, I can see that. The previous game was literally perfect in every way and the author will try to surpass himself/herself. And it may be possible in terms of complexity of storyline and different outcomes, but you can't really relate to your 2 main characters becasue of constant jumping between them. I'm sorry but that's a fact. The game would be better if it had only 1 character, but I understand the author wants to grow, improve and try something new. I just hope the next project will be more consistent in terms of pacing.

Maybe you can try playing the game without self insert yourself in the story. I know many players do that but good VNs are like books, you're reading about other people lives and experiences not yours.

 

[Tierra_Azul]

Different media formats, books don't give you the same agency as a game/VN. In a VN you are choosing the path/story of the protagonists (to a limited degree) in a book you just follow the story with no agency what so ever. This is game developement for dummies, the whole point of player agency is precisely to put the player in the PC's shoes. But multiple PC's doesnt mean its harder to relate to them. Multiple protagonists works great in both media formats. Pulp Fication (movie) or lord of the rings (books) have multiple protagonists. GTA V, Heavy Rain or even Witcher 3 (geralt/Ciri) are examples of games successfully using more than one protagonist.

Btw, This totaly backs up my theory about all the cucks who want to live out their NTR fantasies seeing their "gf" getting turned insideout by a stranger. Then they can come back and say "ohh well, it's just a book." They want to live out their sissy fantasies by having Ian see Lena getting pounded by Axel (even worse, self loathing antifa white boys wanting Jeremy to do the job.)

Btw, if anyone got triggered by the last part and now want to write a 10 page long rebuttal, know I was just trolling/beeing sarcastic.

 

[slightchance]

Btw, if anyone got triggered by the last part and now want to write a 10 page long rebuttal, know I was just trolling/beeing sarcastic.

Not sure where your sarcasm starts/ends, to be honest.

Besides, the term player agency is only referred to as the player's ability to influence the story. Self-insertion is something different.

 

[Tierra_Azul]

Not sure where your sarcasm starts/ends, to be honest.

Besides, the term player agency is only referred to as the player's ability to influence the story. Self-insertion is something different.

How does that dispute anything I wrote? Giving the player the ability to impact the story is the player "inserting" him/herself. No? In a game without a specific PC lik example example a city builder or chess, sure. But any story driven game with playable protagonists, where the player is given meaningful choices it would be hard not to insert him/herself in the characters, it's basicly the point of the game, there is no video game that plays itself, a book/movie does.

 

[balvenie1401]

Giving the player the ability to impact the story is the player "inserting" him/herself. No?

Correct, it's not the same thing.
Governing actions to influence a story and identifying with the characters is not the same thing.

 

[slightchance]

Giving the player the ability to impact the story is the player "inserting" him/herself. No?

You can have agency aka control over the narrative and be indifferent towards the main/side characters. Or you can be very invested in the protagonist of a movie/book while having no agency at all.

It's quite difficult to write yourself (self-insert) into any media when you're not the author. I should have used projecting instead. Which is, by the way, something I don't do when I play NTR or cuckold games.

 

[Idontknowme]

I choose to play as the angel/devil on the protags shoulders. Works like a charm.

 

[Tierra_Azul]

Correct, it's not the same thing.
Governing actions to influence a story and identifying with the characters is not the same thing.

you cant generalize this for everybody, i cant immerse myself in video game characters, it just does not happen. For example i never have the feeling im geralt. While this in some games is a problem because they basically live from immersion. Its sometimes a good thing, i never have any Problems to make the dark/evil choices in games and i have absolutely no problems playing female protagonist games like tomb raider or female mc porn games.

I think the place where we go off road is the part with "identifying", as I agree that we don't "identify" with the PC. It would be hard to personaly identify with Geralt, or a insecure Ian for that matter. But you play the game from the PC's prespective, the PC is our brick on our board so to say, you more or less have to "insert" yourself in the story, as you are given choices to move the plot forwards. You decide if Geralt does this or that in many situations, so you have to put yourself into the situations to game sets up. Ofcourse you have limited agency, as videogames only gives you illusion of a choices in most cases.

You know what, I know I have a poor case here (which sucks since i came out blasting with the "game developement for dummies" comment.), so im not going to dig myself any deeper. I guess it comes down to playstyles.
But I'll stick by the and refuse to budge on the multiple protagonist part.

is this really a thing here?

Well, I wouldn't be suprised.

 

[Ragnar]

Different media formats

No matter how hard you try to self insert in cyoa books, vns or videogames, at the end you're a puppeteer at best if you can change the outcome of some scenes or actions, everything in a game is written in stone beforehand by the devs.
Some can try to give the player more agency, blank slate MCs, several paths and so on, but we're still experiencing other people fantasy worlds.

I choose to play as the angel/devil on the protags shoulders. Works like a charm.

This is exactly how I play ORS and most games.

 

[madman11122]

I really like the game and really look forward to each update. In my main playthrough I'm having Ian go for Emma and Lena go for Holly. I must say Emma is on fire and Holly is too damn cute. It will be a lot of fun to replay, the two MC approach is pretty cool and adds lots of repeatability. My 2 cents, Robert is the WORST haha. I tried doing a Lena --> Robert thing and damn that guy is horrible. Great game so far.

 

[lockerxx]

first time i found this.think about holly

 

[berny]

Perhaps once the game is complete, it could be possible to just play one of the characters and automate the other. Might be fun to have a toggle to set a personality for the automatic character (Default/Random/Chaste/Straight/Bi.. etc. )

That would allow people to focus on one character (A point I totally see!) or for others to set up complex situations by playing both sides, creating chaos or working towards specific goals.

That is something I've been thinking about too while playing different games. I think most games focus too much on hoarding stats to unlock certain decisions. While this certainly isn't a bad approach per se, I would like it very much if more games wouldn't rely entirely on this sort of choices but instead mixed it with "automated choices" (that's a stupid name but I can't find a better right now.)
What I mean is that at certain points in a game the MC "makes the choice for the player" depending on how the MC behaved in the past. That would make your decisions more meaningful imo, because you would temporarily loose control and have to live with the consequences of your past choices.
And it would also be interesting if more games wouldn't use stats first and foremost to lock or unlock certain paths but instead used stats to change paths depending on character traits. So a prudish MC would act differently than a slutty one, but wouldn't necessarily be locked out.
Just to be clear. I'm not suggesting to get rid of this system completely but imo it could definitely be improved. And talking about this in this thread is sort of a sacrilege anyway since EvaKiss is actually way ahead of most other developers in this regard.

Btw, I just realized this is probably not what you were talking about at all, but your post reminded me of this.

 

[BloodyMares]

What I mean is that at certain points in a game the MC "makes the choice for the player" depending on how the MC behaved in the past. That would make your decisions more meaningful imo, because you would temporarily loose control and have to live with the consequences of your past choices.

It's already implemented. You're locked out of certain choices if MC's personality doesn't fit them. Further automation will just ruin the game and turn it into a kinetic novel. I can't speak for everyone else, but I, for one, wouldn't want to have agency only during the first half of the game, and during a second half only watch the consequences with no input whatsoever. You should still be able to choose to react differently to those consequences. If we don't have the agency to TRY to weasel out of those consequences, then we can't really feel responsible for protagonist's actions.

And it would also be interesting if more games wouldn't use stats first and foremost to lock or unlock certain paths but instead used stats to change paths depending on character traits. So a prudish MC would act differently than a slutty one, but wouldn't necessarily be locked out.

Again, it's already somewhat implemented. You can clearly see it during interactions with Cindy for example. You can still go to a photo shoot with her as her friend, or as someone who has ulterior motives, with different dialogues based on that. Another example would be the photoshoot with Seymour, where Lena behaves differently based on her "posh" personality variable. Writing ALL events like this though would require "16 times the details" which Eva Kiss doesn't have the time or resources for, unfortunately. It's much easier to code restrictions based on skill checks or personality variables rather than write a scene with 7 or 20 different variations based on personality and past decisions. We wouldn't have as many options if that was the case, because if you're aiming for details, you need to cut corners on the number of choices to make things easier for yourself if you don't want to spend 4 months to release one update.

 

[berny]

It's already implemented. You're locked out of certain choices if MC's personality doesn't fit them. Further automation will just ruin the game and turn it into a kinetic novel. I can't speak for everyone else, but I, for one, wouldn't want to have agency only during the first half of the game, and during a second half only watch the consequences with no input whatsoever. You should still be able to choose to react differently to those consequences. If we don't have the agency to TRY to weasel out of those consequences, then we can't really feel responsible for protagonist's actions.

I definitely wasn't talking about the whole second half or third of a game just selectively here and there. I personally would really enjoy it if the MC did something I hadn't planned because my past choices led me down this road and I didn't have the possibility to react differently, because this lack of opportunity to rectify the situation is precicely why it would be more meaningful, but sure I can understand that other people would prefer to have more control.

Again, it's already somewhat implemented. You can clearly see it during interactions with Cindy for example. You can still go to a photo shoot with her as her friend, or as someone who has ulterior motives, with different dialogues based on that. Another example would be the photoshoot with Seymour, where Lena behaves differently based on her "posh" personality variable. Writing ALL events like this though would require "16 times the details" which Eva Kiss doesn't have the time or resources for, unfortunately. It's much easier to code restrictions based on skill checks or personality variables rather than write a scene with 7 or 20 different variations based on personality and past decisions. We wouldn't have as many options if that was the case, because if you're aiming for details, you need to cut corners on the number of choices to make things easier for yourself if you don't want to spend 4 months to release one update.

Like I said. This is probably the wrong thread to post this. ORS and GGGB are already pretty great in this regard compared to other games. It was more a general rambling because I noticed this while playing different games. But thanks for this detailed answer and the examples, that is exactly what I had in mind when I wrote my post.

 

[Roderick2]

View attachment 846344
first time i found this.think about holly

I am trying to do this way again, but no success. Do you remember your steps?