VN Ren'Py Abandoned Primal Instinct [v0.07] [SilkandMilkProductions]

[thessaya]

2. A lack of incest (or incestual contact still too far off in the story's future)
I give you: 2 great developers (off the top of my head) who are absolutely flourishing without any incest driving them. DrPinkCake and PhillyGames.

Not the same situation. Their games don't feature incest and everybody is well aware of that fact. Primal Instinct featured a mom and sister in the intro (characters who are quite obviously VERY attached to the MC) only to basically discard them immediately and leave them on the sidelines for months of updates.
Instead you get to deal with your brother in law. Great, that's the kind of shit people have to deal with in real life anyways.

 

[Draverik]

My take on why this project has failed to gain traction...

I do agree with you for the most part, but you forgot to mention one big factor to why those games you mentioned are much more popular then this one. And it's the first impressions, if you fuck it up then there is no way to recover from this. But if you do it right, then you can even milk away for 3 years without any updates.
And you can't really get a better advertisement for a porn VN than being featured on this site, and if you blew it then it's over.

My first impression of this game, was that it wasn't what i expected it to be, it lured me with a false promise of some incestual shenanigans just to take it away within the first 2 minutes and store it for later.

 

[itsyeboii]

Damn, coming from threads like Dual Family and Summertime Saga, this thread is definitly a breath of fresh air. Constructive critisism, good arguments and no hostility whatsoever. Might be because i'm late to this game and missed the shitstrom but still.

 

[itsyeboii]

DonkeyFace What game is WVM?

 

[RandomAccountHere15]

DonkeyFace What game is WVM?

That's the title of the game WVM

 

[DonkeyFace]

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Unlocked
v.0.07 Preview Pic #4

 

[Xumeey]

At least we can all agree that it's sad this game is going to be abandoned.

 

[DanThaMan]

At least we can all agree that it's sad this game is going to be abandoned.

I don't care really, i just feel bad for the patrons who have supported him from the start, for him to just abandon it after like 7 updates.

 

[Xumeey]

I don't care really, i just feel bad for the patrons who have supported him from the start, for him to just abandon it after like 7 updates.

I'm pretty sure they all knew there were no guarantees when they backed him. And do you blame him for abandoning the game even if it sucks for his patreons?

 

[DanThaMan]

I'm pretty sure they all knew there were no guarantees when they backed him. And do you blame him for abandoning the game even if it sucks for his patreons?

He shouldn't have assumed his none-original VN would have gotten loads of money in the first place lol

 

[DonkeyFace]

I do agree with you for the most part, but you forgot to mention one big factor to why those games you mentioned are much more popular then this one. And it's the first impressions, if you fuck it up then there is no way to recover from this. But if you do it right, then you can even milk away for 3 years without any updates.
And you can't really get a better advertisement for a porn VN than being featured on this site, and if you blew it then it's over.

My first impression of this game, was that it wasn't what i expected it to be, it lured me with a false promise of some incestual shenanigans just to take it away within the first 2 minutes and store it for later.

I agree with you about first impressions, and the difficulty of recovering from it if it was bad, or if the synopsis in the OP was not appealing to begin with for some, then they may never return to check out that particular game.

Just brainstorming ways here to help save or resurrect this project. And influenced by all the comments I'm reading.

So what if Silk were to just go ahead and endure his support levels long enough to finish the Prologue and maybe find a way of speeding this portion up without losing any key story elements. And done. "Primal instinct" is the title of the prologue (prequel).

And then he starts a whole new game (well, actually just a continuation with the story intact) with a whole new NAME and it picks up 3 years after the prologue in current time when the MC is back home. And maybe it is written in such a way that the player would not necessarily need to play the prequel in order to fully grasp the story (although it would be helpful). This is often done with movies and novels anyway. This way, silk would be distancing himself from those first impressions you spoke of and also the name Primal Instinct (for those that are already ignoring it), and be able to grab the attention of everyone again with the game being under a whole new name for the MAIN STORY. And BAM the story starts with those beautiful family members in the forefront.

So to sum it up.
He changes the name of the game for the main story section. Primal instinct is the prequel. He then sprinkles in plot elements from the prequel to the main story so players that find that portion boring won't need to play it.

Do you folks think this would work???
The more I think about it, it seems this is absolutely the way to do it.

 

[ShadowThrone]

So what if Silk were to just go ahead and endure his support levels long enough to finish the Prologue and maybe find a way of speeding this portion up without losing any key story elements. And done. "Primal instinct" is the title of the prologue (prequel).

And then he starts a whole new game (well, actually just a continuation with the story intact) with a whole new NAME and it picks up 3 years after the prologue in current time when the MC is back home

Do you folks think this would work???
The more I think about it, it seems this is absolutely the way to do it.

Depends on how fast the prologue takes to complete and if it feels finished.
He may lose even more support if people feel that he has abandoned one game to move onto another (even if it is a continuation).

 

[DonkeyFace]

Depends on how fast the prologue takes to complete and if it feels finished.
He may lose even more support if people feel that he has abandoned one game to move onto another (even if it is a continuation).

It was asked on discord how many chapters remain for the prologue and he said probably 3 or 4, but that was prior to v06. so after v07 that would leave us at 1-2.

No, he wouldn't lose any support because he wouldn't be abandoning anything, just basically changing the name of the game for the when the Main story starts. In the prologue we are viewing events that happened 3 years prior anyway, just in case anyone has forgotten. Kind of a fresh start in a way, for those who are already ignoring this or lost interest long ago because they are only interested in the incest story line.

 

[Abhai]

I agree with you about first impressions, and the difficulty of recovering from it if it was bad, or if the synopsis in the OP was not appealing to begin with for some, then they may never return to check out that particular game.

Just brainstorming ways here to help save or resurrect this project. And influenced by all the comments I'm reading.

So what if Silk were to just go ahead and endure his support levels long enough to finish the Prologue and maybe find a way of speeding this portion up without losing any key story elements. And done. "Primal instinct" is the title of the prologue (prequel).

And then he starts a whole new game (well, actually just a continuation with the story intact) with a whole new NAME and it picks up 3 years after the prologue in current time when the MC is back home. And maybe it is written in such a way that the player would not necessarily need to play the prequel in order to fully grasp the story (although it would be helpful). This is often done with movies and novels anyway. This way, silk would be distancing himself from those first impressions you spoke of and also the name Primal Instinct (for those that are already ignoring it), and be able to grab the attention of everyone again with the game being under a whole new name for the MAIN STORY. And BAM the story starts with those beautiful family members in the forefront.

So to sum it up.
He changes the name of the game for the main story section. Primal instinct is the prequel. He then sprinkles in plot elements from the prequel to the main story so players that find that portion boring won't need to play it.

Do you folks think this would work???
The more I think about it, it seems this is absolutely the way to do it.

Hmm, an interesting proposal

What would be possible plot in that new game? Just another boring "landlady/roommate" game?
Ntr or no-ntr? Of course pregnancy is "must have", or there will be constant bragging of those super(online)inseminators.

So. lets say -three years have passed.The mc lives in his home city (or not)...Unfortunately the marriage with Meghan is falling apart, for a while now. Meghan cant have a child, either he, or she is having troubles, artificial insemination wont work either. The only cure could be online-insemination..yep, there ya go!
On top of that our dear mc has become a gambling addict, with inevitable financial troubles and huge debts. The only things keeping his dic..head up, are his mma underground fights (or if dev wanna to be original our mc could be a life coach)...

So there is some basic setup for incoming drama.
He could try to smooth up things with Meghan, or he can choose a different path, either with some of the old characters (landlady, roommate, Mei, Samara, Lawan...) or with a few new/fresh ones...

It could work, yet the most important thing could be that dev learns from his mistakes, and to take a bit modified approach in whole, as mentioned in those posts around here.

 

[Amahl Farouk]

This game hasn't made any money for a couple of reasons.

1. It doesn't really know what it is.
Is it story about cheating?
Is it a corruption story?
Is it a romance story?
Is it a supernatural story?
Is it a bang the family story?
Is it a story set in medieval times?
Is it a story about a fuckup mma star and his exploits in Thailand?

This game has tried to be all of those things and pretty much failed at all of them. It is a classic case of a dev, talented at story writing and character development, and definitely talented at rendering and coding simply biting off more than he can chew. THis complexity of story telling would need a full team behind it to support the scale of the game.

2. Unrealistic expectations
From the very beginning we saw the dev expecting money to flow in, this rarely happens. He is pulling in just over 300 dollars a month. which isn't terrible really for a game with such a small footprint on the internet. He has done practically no effort in promotion, instead expecting the game to sell on its merits. He also expects what is an extremely slow burn of a story to attract big bucks, which will never happen given the lack of the major money tags.

3. A poorly designed patreon, and lack of interest generation.
Looking at GGGB as an example. You had your preview release, your alpha, your beta and then final. This tactic kept the game in the spot light time after time after time, and as far as I now, eva missed hardly ever on hitting the monthly update cycle

This game hasn't failed for technical reasons. It has failed for the lack of effective story boarding, the lack of development of an effective workflow setup, the lack of proper editing, and long term vs short term story development. The devs expectation of 2000 dollars to restart to v.08 really shows his lack of understanding of how the market he is in works. If he pauses PI then I hope he uses the time to really investigate what makes the top tier of games SO successful, if he does this he might be able to reduce the hubris that is blinding him to the shortfalls of his game design and workflow, and hopefully allow him to work to his strengths, which are many, he is a talented game maker. But thee is more to selling a game that good renders and a good story.

Despite its shortfalls, I will be sorry to see this story end and I wish him well in his future games,

 

[DonkeyFace]

those super(online)inseminators.

Haha. this had me rolling!

It could work, yet the most important thing could be that dev learns from his mistakes, and to take a bit modified approach in whole, as mentioned in those posts around here.

I hope Silk is using an Alt. account to view this thread (since he hasn't logged in with his main account). Most everything being said has been done in a constructive manner. Personally I love everything about the game and don't want to see it change. But I am not the market. And I would rather see it continued in modified form (if need be) than not exist at all.

 

[DonkeyFace]

This game hasn't made any money for a couple of reasons.

1. It doesn't really know what it is.
Is it story about cheating?
Is it a corruption story?
Is it a romance story?
Is it a supernatural story?
Is it a bang the family story?
Is it a story set in medieval times?
Is it a story about a fuckup mma star and his exploits in Thailand?

This game has tried to be all of those things and pretty much failed at all of them. It is a classic case of a dev, talented at story writing and character development, and definitely talented at rendering and coding simply biting off more than he can chew. THis complexity of story telling would need a full team behind it to support the scale of the game.

2. Unrealistic expectations
From the very beginning we saw the dev expecting money to flow in, this rarely happens. He is pulling in just over 300 dollars a month. which isn't terrible really for a game with such a small footprint on the internet. He has done practically no effort in promotion, instead expecting the game to sell on its merits. He also expects what is an extremely slow burn of a story to attract big bucks, which will never happen given the lack of the major money tags.

3. A poorly designed patreon, and lack of interest generation.
Looking at GGGB as an example. You had your preview release, your alpha, your beta and then final. This tactic kept the game in the spot light time after time after time, and as far as I now, eva missed hardly ever on hitting the monthly update cycle

This game hasn't failed for technical reasons. It has failed for the lack of effective story boarding, the lack of development of an effective workflow setup, the lack of proper editing, and long term vs short term story development. The devs expectation of 2000 dollars to restart to v.08 really shows his lack of understanding of how the market he is in works. If he pauses PI then I hope he uses the time to really investigate what makes the top tier of games SO successful, if he does this he might be able to reduce the hubris that is blinding him to the shortfalls of his game design and workflow, and hopefully allow him to work to his strengths, which are many, he is a talented game maker. But thee is more to selling a game that good renders and a good story.

Despite its shortfalls, I will be sorry to see this story end and I wish him well in his future games,

Interesting points you make here, and I certainly agree with much of it. Not sure how point #3 would work with such a slow moving story. Such small incremental portions without much or any meat might hurt more than it helps? IDK. Perhaps releasing 1 path per 1 1/2 months could work. A players favorite Gal would then still be on a 3 month cycle as it is anyway. But then what would happen when the main story hits and many more paths are introduced.

In hindsight, yes this project was probably way too big and ambitious for a first game, especially for a team of one. It would have been wiser to have started with something more simple with a central focus. Theoretically he would have built up a substantial fan (support) base before tackling a project like Primal Instinct.

I hope he does not walk away from game creation entirely if he does not reach his goal (which is highly unlikely in that short time frame). He's way too creative and talented to give up altogether. He's also great at conveying emotional content and situations. This emotional stuff is getting really popular in the gaming community.

 

[Amahl Farouk]

You are absolutely right, he is a really good writer, he just needs a team around him to take over some of the heavy lifting for him. When we get down and depressed, having people around us picks us up and helps us work through it.

Maybe he could break this up into smaller little vns, per character, to get through the prologues. The story at the core of this is really interesting, it just needs some focus

 

[ShangTsung]

Really an amazing game, and we can really see the big improvement in render quality since episode 4, i just hope next update will advance more on the plot, end the vacation in order to get all the characters back together.

 

[Xumeey]

Really an amazing game, and we can really see the big improvement in render quality since episode 4, i just hope next update will advance more on the plot, end the vacation in order to get all the characters back together.

Bless your innocent heart. Sadly the game is being abandoned after v0.7