VN Ren'Py Our Red String [Ch.14.1.4 Beta] [Eva Kiss]

[Erectosaurus]

Wait people celebrate their birthdays past the age of 18? Must be a European thing.

 

[maksblack1000]

It's high time for people to unsubscribe from supporting Eva.

 

[Lord Bradley]

Chapter 14.1 Status Report (12)

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Just now


My plan was to release the new update by late August or early September, but here we are, and I haven’t managed to finish everything I had set out to do. I apologize about that.

The main part of the chapter is almost ready, but I still need to add a couple of variations to a certain scene, and honestly, there’s another one I’d really like to include. I feel like it works as the emotional climax of this narrative block.
It’s frustrating; I’ve been pushing hard all month to get everything done, and I still fell short.
This weekend I’ll need to take a couple of days off to head home and celebrate my birthday, but once I’m back, I’ll keep crunching to get this wrapped up as soon as possible.
There’s not much left, but after so many weeks of constant work, the final stretch is proving tough. I’ll use these two days to catch my breath and then dive back in at full speed to finish the remaining scenes, run a proper playtest, and publish no later than mid-month.
Once again, and as always, thank you all for your patience and trust. I truly hope to deliver something that lives up to your expectations very soon!
Also, it's been a while since the last Q&A, so I'm thinking about doing another one after the release, if you're interested.

It sounds good on paper, one last mental reset to finish out the update, polish things, make sure the different routes and choices have variety of consequences.... But then I remember it's just gonna be a photoshoot/pool party with few characters and rest will sit in black hole of non existance. Can't help but be a little skeptical of this update being decent.. I put it in the same bag as Seymour traveling update, sure some will absolutely love it, but in general sense it will feel like detached update from the game if that makes sense. I really miss proper full day in the city with all cast involved in different places from morning til evening. Maybe content wise it's similar amount and details as other recent updates, but it just feels a lot richer and with more substance when you feel like whole game is alive not just 1 tiny part of it.

 

[DaLuke2]

It sounds good on paper, one last mental reset to finish out the update, polish things, make sure the different routes and choices have variety of consequences.... But then I remember it's just gonna be a photoshoot/pool party with few characters and rest will sit in black hole of non existance. Can't help but be a little skeptical of this update being decent.. I put it in the same bag as Seymour traveling update, sure some will absolutely love it, but in general sense it will feel like detached update from the game if that makes sense. I really miss proper full day in the city with all cast involved in different places from morning til evening. Maybe content wise it's similar amount and details as other recent updates, but it just feels a lot richer and with more substance when you feel like whole game is alive not just 1 tiny part of it.

Honestly, between the constant over-promising and under-delivering, and the poor plot choices at every cornerstone of the game, I am genuinely fascinated EK still has patreons. Some people seem to have money to waste.

You are obviously right, EK gave us the same crap before the beach update, "you're gonna see what you're gonna see", and in the end no path genuinely advanced except the throuple and the degree of commitment in the relationships. Everything else was utter rubbish and/or bland as fuck.

In this update we will probably have more of the mediocre slutpath scenes, with more embarrassing writing and absurd inner monologue ("oh I love acting like a slut blah blah blah"), and that's it.

Eva Kiss might enjoy the ride for now, taking idiots' money and screwing them all the way, but she should be careful: I know a few players not on this website, who, like me, are not particularly excited about an upcoming ORS update for the first time in five years. This is a bad sign in the long run.

 

[Maviarab]

Honestly, between the constant over-promising and under-delivering, and the poor plot choices at every cornerstone of the game, I am genuinely fascinated EK still has patreons. Some people seem to have money to waste.

You are obviously right, EK gave us the same crap before the beach update, "you're gonna see what you're gonna see", and in the end no path genuinely advanced except the throuple and the degree of commitment in the relationships. Everything else was utter rubbish and/or bland as fuck.

In this update we will probably have more of the mediocre slutpath scenes, with more embarrassing writing and absurd inner monologue ("oh I love acting like a slut blah blah blah"), and that's it.

Eva Kiss might enjoy the ride for now, taking idiots' money and screwing them all the way, but she should be careful: I know a few players not on this website, who, like me, are not particularly excited about an upcoming ORS update for the first time in five years. This is a bad sign in the long run.

 

[Saerwen]

Honestly, between the constant over-promising and under-delivering, and the poor plot choices at every cornerstone of the game, I am genuinely fascinated EK still has patreons. Some people seem to have money to waste.

You are obviously right, EK gave us the same crap before the beach update, "you're gonna see what you're gonna see", and in the end no path genuinely advanced except the throuple and the degree of commitment in the relationships. Everything else was utter rubbish and/or bland as fuck.

In this update we will probably have more of the mediocre slutpath scenes, with more embarrassing writing and absurd inner monologue ("oh I love acting like a slut blah blah blah"), and that's it.

Eva Kiss might enjoy the ride for now, taking idiots' money and screwing them all the way, but she should be careful: I know a few players not on this website, who, like me, are not particularly excited about an upcoming ORS update for the first time in five years. This is a bad sign in the long run.

At least Eva is one in 1% of developers who regularly post updates and finish their games.

 

[Tierra_Azul]

Chapter 14.1 Status Report (12)

You must be registered to see the links

Just now


My plan was to release the new update by late August or early September, but here we are, and I haven’t managed to finish everything I had set out to do. I apologize about that.

The main part of the chapter is almost ready, but I still need to add a couple of variations to a certain scene, and honestly, there’s another one I’d really like to include. I feel like it works as the emotional climax of this narrative block.
It’s frustrating; I’ve been pushing hard all month to get everything done, and I still fell short.
This weekend I’ll need to take a couple of days off to head home and celebrate my birthday, but once I’m back, I’ll keep crunching to get this wrapped up as soon as possible.
There’s not much left, but after so many weeks of constant work, the final stretch is proving tough. I’ll use these two days to catch my breath and then dive back in at full speed to finish the remaining scenes, run a proper playtest, and publish no later than mid-month.
Once again, and as always, thank you all for your patience and trust. I truly hope to deliver something that lives up to your expectations very soon!
Also, it's been a while since the last Q&A, so I'm thinking about doing another one after the release, if you're interested.

 

[jimul18]

A couple of thoughts on this:

1. It's not surprising that there is another delay. "Mid-Month" is also a term that can be stretched. The main problem here is the way that EK approaches the game in general. The gardening approach and one update informing the next, with barely an overarching theme left, has imho failed. One chapter or 2 semi-hard-boner updates per year... c'mon.
2. AI generated fanart has caught up and in parts surpassed what EK is producing. However the game still relies on tracing in some cases pretty obvious porn stills and small framecount animations. It is difficult to change this mid game, but for the next project this should be the foundation (well trained models for each character and guardrails for the artstyle). This will also free up resources (since currently a lot is being outsourced already)
3. Every update there is whining about having difficulty working out the overlaying branches, variables and permutations. Well don't bite of more than you can chew.

Solution: Wrap up ORS as quickly as possible. Most fans (except for the diehard simps) are not going to be satisfiable in any way, shape or form. Then get together with some collaborators and work out a new production process from the ground up. As for the next game, try to find a balance between what GGGB was and what you wanted ORS to be but are somewhat failing at. One neutral-mask MC (female), one of the seven basic plots as baseline in the background, interesting side characters, semi-fixed number of scenes per update, fixed update shedule (1-3 month).

 

[sztrb]

Honestly, between the constant over-promising and under-delivering, and the poor plot choices at every cornerstone of the game, I am genuinely fascinated EK still has patreons. Some people seem to have money to waste.

You are obviously right, EK gave us the same crap before the beach update, "you're gonna see what you're gonna see", and in the end no path genuinely advanced except the throuple and the degree of commitment in the relationships. Everything else was utter rubbish and/or bland as fuck.

In this update we will probably have more of the mediocre slutpath scenes, with more embarrassing writing and absurd inner monologue ("oh I love acting like a slut blah blah blah"), and that's it.

Eva Kiss might enjoy the ride for now, taking idiots' money and screwing them all the way, but she should be careful: I know a few players not on this website, who, like me, are not particularly excited about an upcoming ORS update for the first time in five years. This is a bad sign in the long run.

I'd argue she actually delivers quality.

There are devs who are paid a lot more, who either churn out absolute turds like the summertime saga people or haven't delivered anything in months, inspite of making living wages from their patreon.

 

[jimul18]

I'd argue she actually delivers quality.

There are devs who are paid a lot more, who either churn out absolute turds like the summertime saga people or haven't delivered anything in months, inspite of making living wages from their patreon.

What kind of an argument is that? Other are shit, so EK can be shit too? And since other who are shit make a lot more money, the patronage EK gets is more deserved even though she also delivers fewer updates?

 

[sztrb]

What kind of an argument is that? Other are shit, so EK can be shit too? And since other who are shit make a lot more money, the patronage EK gets is more deserved even though she also delivers fewer updates?

I'd argue that wait time to development ratio, is decent, especially for the art and story telling.

There's very few examples in eroge dev that has a good development to quality ratio. Outside of the Japanese eroge industry, there's what? Love & Sex? And as constant as updates are, the dev keeps retconning features and stories, which makes a consistant playthrough difficult anyway. Goodbye Eternity is a consistant and quality producer, but they are slow as well. Even Driven Affairs with Tikku & Manitu is basically constantly retarded in progress.

So, yes, in the current industry, where there's a lot of development and very few consistant and a lot of unfinished projects, I'd argue that EvaKiss is a better dev than most.

That is not to say I am excusing the slow dev pace, but there seemingly exists no way to actually force devs to do more work at a faster rate. Especially in an unregulated industry.

Not to mention, this is a pirating website, most of us here do not support the devs financially and even if we do, there's very little that we can do to actually force any work anyway.

 

[jimul18]

So, yes, in the current industry, where there's a lot of development and very few consistant and a lot of unfinished projects, I'd argue that EvaKiss is a better dev than most.

No argument here, EK is not a bad dev, but being better than most in the kind of industry you describe is like being best in a competitive turd eating contest.

That is not to say I am excusing the slow dev pace, but there seemingly exists no way to actually force devs to do more work at a faster rate. Especially in an unregulated industry.

There would be if this industry, like so many parts of influencer economy wasn't about getting to a very high point, then coasting and dropping in small but constant increments. Since you can be sure that if you have been popular enough at oine point, a percentage of people is never going to quit giving you money no matter what. If that amount of money (you can never lose) is big enough, any incentive for hustle or improvement is out the window.

 

[sztrb]

There would be if this industry, like so many parts of influencer economy wasn't about getting to a very high point, then coasting and dropping in small but constant increments. Since you can be sure that if you have been popular enough at oine point, a percentage of people is never going to quit giving you money no matter what. If that amount of money (you can never lose) is big enough, any incentive for hustle or improvement is out the window.

Part of the problem is that this industry is not regulated. This kind of thing will always happen when there is no regulation since self regulation cannot actually be trusted.

 

[dolfe67]

Part of the problem is that this industry is not regulated. This kind of thing will always happen when there is no regulation since self regulation cannot actually be trusted.

Regulated industry is no better, do we have to talk about all the scam "micro" transactions (or giga transaction with $500 skins), lootboxes and co? AAA games unpolished or unfinished at release?

 

[Tierra_Azul]

1. AI generated fanart has caught up and in parts surpassed what EK is producing. However the game still relies on tracing in some cases pretty obvious porn stills and small framecount animations. It is difficult to change this mid game, but for the next project this should be the foundation (well trained models for each character and guardrails for the artstyle). This will also free up resources (since currently a lot is being outsourced already.

VNs thrive on personal artistic touches, and over-dependence on a LoRAs or similar could stifle her ability to adapt art dynamically to the narrative, a strength she likely maintains with her current methods. I don’t really want to get into a for or against AI debate, but personally, AI only leads to frustration for me, things don’t look like I envisioned, forcing me to go back and edit or redo tons of stuff. There’s also the pipeline of generating numerous images of the same scene before you’re satisfied, which could end up taking a lot of time. Additionally, AI might limit EK’s creative spontaneity, a key asset in VNs where personal artistic evolution often enhances storytelling.

I might be talking out of my ass, as I don’t know much about setting up these models (it might be much simpler than I realize.). But I think EK would still need to invest time in preparing the dataset, ensuring quality control, and iteratively adjusting the LoRA to avoid errors, inconsistent animations, or art issues, which could still be time-intensive without specialized support. Moreover, the process might not be as "simple" as it seems, as her art style has evolved across the two projects, potentially requiring multiple LoRAs or constant retraining, which could complicate her workflow rather than streamline it. While her existing body of work is a strong foundation, the practical overhead and need for ongoing oversight might limit the time saved.

 

[vgbestly]

View attachment 5223481

Pppffft, aren't we all +100k a year game dev farming out work for $10/hr to Jimmy in India.

 

[BlandChili]

I feel like it works as the emotional climax of this narrative block.

triple anal penetration?

Ivy grazing Jeremy's cock with her pinky on accident?

 

[What'sNew]

Every update there is whining about having difficulty working out the overlaying branches, variables and permutations. Well don't bite of more than you can chew.

This exactly. At this point all Im expecting is good sex scenes and the occasional animation, which I do love. The photoshoot is at least a good excuse for some nice eye candy. So fingers crossed Eva at least delivers on that and lessens the number of reused drawings/animations.

EK gave us the same crap before the beach update, "you're gonna see what you're gonna see",

God I hope it turns out better than the beach event.

 

[ffive]

You are obviously right, EK gave us the same crap before the beach update, "you're gonna see what you're gonna see", and in the end no path genuinely advanced except the throuple and the degree of commitment in the relationships.

Uh, yeah. No relationship path has advanced except for all those which did have advance. A brilliant critique that gets right to the heart of the matter.

 

[sztrb]

Regulated industry is no better, do we have to talk about all the scam "micro" transactions (or giga transaction with $500 skins), lootboxes and co? AAA games unpolished or unfinished at release?

I think if other jurisdictions passed similar laws as the EU on the loot box phenomanon, or they just went after EASports, we'd be in a better position.

Having said that, outside of VNs, I generally don't play modern games.