VN Ren'Py Our Red String [Ch. 13.2 Alpha] [Eva Kiss]

[zgaf]

Oh here we go, people complaining about dev's milking while downloading the game for free on a pirate site...the irony.

I don't agree with you. I think creators can prevent pirate web sites, at least most of it, . They don't do that because of They need recognition and supporters. People don't pay the games which they don't like

 

[Jplays512]

The problems with ORS are not only the two MCs, it's the tone of the story, the scope of the multiple paths and so on.
Imo the best she can do right now is to start closing side characters arcs to focus on IanxLena.

I don’t even think it needs to just be IanxLena. Let each of them have 4 or so additional options. ORS to me was always a temptation story more than a corruption story but it seems like it is slowly shifting into corruption story where if a character appears someone is going to sleep with them.

 

[Xupuzulla]

Lena is the most popular MC by a lot.
You guys are in CRACK COCAINE if you think Lena is going to leave anytime soon

 

[CreativeCritic2]

Again, though, it comes back to the fact that she set herself up to fail with ORS. She bit off more than she can chew by having two main characters, an as development has gone on, it has become increasingly obvious that this is causing her a world of issues, as she is practically developing two games at the same time, while also tasked with intertwining them. It requires producing twice the amount of content, and disentanglig a whole range of variations and dialogue, which is simply too much for one person to handle, especially when I think her motivation is very different when producing Ian's content versus Lena's content.

I think this is on point but uncharitable... I think it's better to look at the problems with ORS in artistic terms rather than through the lens of Eva cynically chasing patrons.

The idea of two protagonists whose relationship expands and contracts based upon decisions they make with regards to each other and with regards to the people around them is a really interesting one but it was always *very* ambitious for a porn game.

I can imagine a French film director doing something amazing with the idea of two people feeling a genuine connection only to wind up messing it up because they can't break with old habits, old influences, or stop looking over the horizon for the next chance at a truly world-class threesome. The problem is that this isn't the type of story that porn games tend to tell... most porn games are either escapist fantasies with male MCs or they're weird corruption fantasies with female MCs. GGGB was a world-class example of the latter but I think Eva wanted to write more and you can sense that ambition in the fact that so many of the endings in GGGB are really fucked-up and borderline depressing when you look beyond the fact that the protagonist is having a grand old time as far as orgasms are concerned.

There is a sense in which ORS is an NTR game as the emotional dynamics are a lot closer to those of the better-written NTR games (like Misfits) than your typical escapist fantasy. NTR games often have this quite interesting dynamic where you start out trying to manipulate your GF into cheating on you so that you can fuck other people guilt-free only for it to drift slowly into 'I am perverting my GF because it turns me on to see her surrender completely to her desires' and I think that ORS taps into some of those dynamics without really engaging or wanting to be an NTR game.

Where I think OP's critique is really on point is the fact that, as written, ORS is more like two games with occasional crossovers than a game about a couple. Reading this thread, a lot of people approach the game by leaning into the MCs alternate relationships and I think that reflects Eva's struggles keeping the game centred upon the couple. To be honest, I don't get the impression that Lena and Ian are all that into each other as neither of them seem to think about each other when they're apart and nobody at any point goes 'Oooooh... maybe I shouldn't try and fuck their best friend'

With regards to the criticisms that Ian's love interests are better than Lena's: I think that's true of GGGB too... in that game, there's a nice artist and your high school boyfriend (who you wind up believing is dead) and every other dude is an abusive, manipulative, degenerate prick. I think unsympathetic-but-hot characters are Eva's calling card.

 

[Paslicivi]

Actually you do, for your opinion to matter in the slightest anyway. If you aren't supporting the game or the developer then have the decency to just say thank you for the update, then go disappear. Noone cares what you think, least of all the developer.

So if you do not pay for something, then you can not have an opinion on it? I don't intend to start an argument, but I can tell you that things don't work that way anywhere.

Previously, I supported Eva for a long time, but I stopped supporting it for the last three or four updates. Regardless of all this, I think everyone has the freedom to express their opinion on anything as long as there is no insult.

 

[DatBoit]

EK's fan base was build on Female MC Corruption. You can't just pinpoint its problems to just kill Lena side of the story. If EK goes that route I think you can expetct some backlash from her paying followers. GGGB was a bang and most content was quite hardcore. ORS share some themes and even guest npcs from GGGB but the general tone of the story is softer.
The problems with ORS are not only the two MCs, it's the tone of the story, the scope of the multiple paths and so on.
Imo the best she can do right now is to start closing side characters arcs to focus on IanxLena.

Of course, I understand perfectly that there is a huge risk involved in it. But it doesn't change my opinion that Lena's POV feels extremely uninspired, which I think has its root cause in that Eva is only using it to appease her patrons rather than of her own motivation. It's falling more and more into GGGB territory, something that Eva did not want a repeat of.

At that point, I think long-term it would be better to back yourself, trust your own vision and accept that there would be an immediate negative effect, which would slowly dissipate as time goes on.

I also disagree that it would be best to focus on Ian x Lena. This would make both POVs redundant and the game all about romancing yourself.

 

[Geigi]

I think all of what you say is true, but it also feels like we're getting a bit into semantics now. What I mean with my reasoning and "challenge" is that a male MC game would have been something new and refreshing for Eva, both because she has not written from that perspective before, and because she'd be forced to write from the POV of the opposite gender to herself.

In this sense, I believe she also felt like she had something to add to the AVN scene, where most male MC games tend to be run-of-the-mill with the same recycled tropes over and over again.

Fearing the negative effects from excluding a female POV, though, she decided to do both, which would satisfy her desire to do something different, and keep her patrons happy. What is or isn't a challenge is less crticial to the point, it's more to say that she didn't want a repeat of GGGB, which would have been way more likely with the sole female MC setup.

Maybe her next game will have a male protagonist. If it doesn't then that means she won't have a male MC ever again, because I don't think she wants to have dual protagonists anymore because this game has already became messy due to burn out. I think this game would be better if it had two female protagonists.

 

[ffive]

Maybe her next game will have a male protagonist.

I keep saying the next game will have Stan as the protagonist, because that'd please the Patrons immensely.

 

[Ragnar]

Of course, I understand perfectly that there is a huge risk involved in it. But it doesn't change my opinion that Lena's POV feels extremely uninspired, which I think has its root cause in that Eva is only using it to appease her patrons rather than of her own motivation. It's falling more and more into GGGB territory, something that Eva did not want a repeat of.

At that point, I think long-term it would be better to back yourself, trust your own vision and accept that there would be an immediate negative effect, which would slowly dissipate as time goes on.

I also disagree that it would be best to focus on Ian x Lena. This would make both POVs redundant and the game all about romancing yourself.

I think is quite obvious that IanxLena is the main point of the story since the very beginning. The rest of npcs and stories are fluff.

 

[Geigi]

Damn, I've reached my reaction limit.

 

[DatBoit]

I think this is on point but uncharitable... I think it's better to look at the problems with ORS in artistic terms rather than through the lens of Eva cynically chasing patrons.

The idea of two protagonists whose relationship expands and contracts based upon decisions they make with regards to each other and with regards to the people around them is a really interesting one but it was always *very* ambitious for a porn game.

I can imagine a French film director doing something amazing with the idea of two people feeling a genuine connection only to wind up messing it up because they can't break with old habits, old influences, or stop looking over the horizon for the next chance at a truly world-class threesome. The problem is that this isn't the type of story that porn games tend to tell... most porn games are either escapist fantasies with male MCs or they're weird corruption fantasies with female MCs. GGGB was a world-class example of the latter but I think Eva wanted to write more and you can sense that ambition in the fact that so many of the endings in GGGB are really fucked-up and borderline depressing when you look beyond the fact that the protagonist is having a grand old time as far as orgasms are concerned.

There is a sense in which ORS is an NTR game as the emotional dynamics are a lot closer to those of the better-written NTR games (like Misfits) than your typical escapist fantasy. NTR games often have this quite interesting dynamic where you start out trying to manipulate your GF into cheating on you so that you can fuck other people guilt-free only for it to drift slowly into 'I am perverting my GF because it turns me on to see her surrender completely to her desires' and I think that ORS taps into some of those dynamics without really engaging or wanting to be an NTR game.

Where I think OP's critique is really on point is the fact that, as written, ORS is more like two games with occasional crossovers than a game about a couple. Reading this thread, a lot of people approach the game by leaning into the MCs alternate relationships and I think that reflects Eva's struggles keeping the game centred upon the couple. To be honest, I don't get the impression that Lena and Ian are all that into each other as neither of them seem to think about each other when they're apart and nobody at any point goes 'Oooooh... maybe I shouldn't try and fuck their best friend'

With regards to the criticisms that Ian's love interests are better than Lena's: I think that's true of GGGB too... in that game, there's a nice artist and your high school boyfriend (who you wind up believing is dead) and every other dude is an abusive, manipulative, degenerate prick. I think unsympathetic-but-hot characters are Eva's calling card.

I agree with you that a dual protagnonist setup is inherently interesting, and I'm sure Eva saw all of the allure with it that you have outlined here. Where I think she went wrong is that it was something she did not think through carefully enough, hoping that she could make it work as she went along, even though such a setup requires an extreme amount of precision.

 

[Nifferman]

Said this in the past,im going to say it now and im going to say this many times in the future.
THANK FUCKING GOD EVAKISS ONLY LISTEN TO HER PATREONS!
Holy shit the crying is way too much

I think someone hacked this Alison stan's account.

 

[Xupuzulla]

I think is quite obvious that IanxLena is the main point of the story since the very beginning. The rest of npcs and stories are fluff.

The whole appeal of this game is the multiple choices and the LIs,if you cut everything you are left with what?
A Lena-Ian dating simulator?

 

[Erectosaurus]

Actually you do, for your opinion to matter in the slightest anyway. If you aren't supporting the game or the developer then have the decency to just say thank you for the update, then go disappear. Noone cares what you think, least of all the developer.

Says who? A product doesn't magically become less shit because I shilled out money for it. And if you don't care what people who pirate the game think then why are you crying about it so much? Take your own advice.

 

[Nifferman]

The whole appeal of this game is the multiple choices and the LIs,if you cut everything you are left with what?
A Lena-Ian dating simulator?

Lena-Ian dating simulator sounds really appealing

 

[Xupuzulla]

I think someone hacked this Alison stan's account.

Why?
I think the update is very good,that Holly scene made my balls tingle.
I think some people here need to realize this game inst for them anymore.

 

[Arata20]

I can only echo what everyone else is saying about this being a terrible update. It was essentially just a fuckfest that saw us skipping from one sex scene to another, with minimal dialogue and story progression. Although fuckfests can be fun, this was so bare bones that it barely fits the critera of an AVN, and struck me as more of a random scene collection with porn-level buildup. Adding to all of this, it was extremely short and ammounted to no more than 20 minutes of playtime. You just expect so much more from a developer with Eva Kiss's track record.

Again, though, it comes back to the fact that she set herself up to fail with ORS. She bit off more than she can chew by having two main characters, an as development has gone on, it has become increasingly obvious that this is causing her a world of issues, as she is practically developing two games at the same time, while also tasked with intertwining them. It requires producing twice the amount of content, and disentanglig a whole range of variations and dialogue, which is simply too much for one person to handle, especially when I think her motivation is very different when producing Ian's content versus Lena's content.

Which brings me onto my theory, which is that I firmly believe that Eva, after GGGB, was always intending to make a male MC game. I remember her development diaries she posted back then, reflecting on the fact that virtually all the successful AVNs are with a male MC, asking herself whether the ought to also go this route to reach the same level of success. She was further saying that she felt done with the GGGB type of storyline, and was looking for some new challenge.

But then she got scared, I think, because all of the polls she was running, as well as the sentiment in her comment section, showed that the female MC was one of the premiere reasons for supporting her. So she gave in, settled for having two main characters, hoping that it would satisfy both ends of the spectrum and give herself the challenge she sought, but not fully recognizing the momentous ordeal this would become.

My theory also makes some sense if we consider the vast difference in quality between Ian and Lena's side of the story. Ian's love interests are far superior and his character development is way more interesting. Ian is actually going somewhere, he is finding success in his writing, in his relationship and his personal improvement, both physically and confidence wise, which makes him overall quite easy to sympathize with. This is in stark contrast to Lena, who, quite frankly, have a bunch of bums as love interests and whose character is completely inconsistent, falling into the typical depravities in corruption games, while trying to have some saving grace in her musical ambitions. It just doesn't work - her storyline is all over the place and suggests that it is not supported by the same level of planning and motivation as Ian's.

And here we are. We have seen increasing development, disappointing and shorter updates, reworks, and an absurd chapter structure of prologue, epilogue and 2-4 partial updates. It has simply gone completely haywire. I think all of this has its root cause in the dual protagonist setup, and a differing motivation for those two characters.

To be honest, as controversial as it would be, I believe the best decision, for the future of ORS, would be to kill Lena's POV. It would immediately reduce the amount of content Eva has to make, and allow her to focus on providing something meaningful and gratifying for Ian's POV. I understand it would be extremely controversial and possibly deter a lot of people from playing the game, but when the alternative is to let things continue to spiral out of control, I can't help but feel like Eva should show some strong leadership and confidence in her ability, and stick up for what she believes is best and want to do.

Otherwise, I'm afraid we're in for a rocky road with ORS going forward, seeing the tendencies we are seeing amplified, and ending up with a rather disillusioning final third of the game, where everything is a mess and there is no real sense of direction. And that would be the real tragedy I think.

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[DatBoit]

I think is quite obvious that IanxLena is the main point of the story since the very beginning. The rest of npcs and stories are fluff.

Sure, but this would require changing the whole narrative structure, as it makes no sense first being on Ian's POV, getting the choice to pursue Lena, and then being on Lena's POV getting the choice to accept Ian's advances.

If the focus should be Ian x Lena, a third-person POV or a kinetic structure would work better. Or possibly, having a select few choices to shape the characters, leading to different, predetermined outcomes for their relationship.

 

[Nifferman]

Why?
I think the update is very good,that Holly scene made my balls tingle.
I think some people here need to realize this game inst for them anymore.

The scene itself was hot, but the pacing wasn't, cuz that was something even the slutty version Lena had yet to do. But, God bless this game's an RPG so allot options to choose from.

 

[Geigi]

The scene itself was hot, but the pacing wasn't, cuz that was something even the slutty version Lena had yet to do. But, God bless this game an RPG so allot option to choose from.

Lena? More like Ivy.