VN Ren'Py Rebirth [Ep.5 Update 13] [LikesBlondes]

DA22 · Oct 30, 2023

Impurity2937 said:
The real choices are what to do with Carmen and Astrid plus Laurie, rest is scripted and irrelevant really (beside gaining or not useless powers). I agree they are quite meaningful but imo the story lacks of less meaningful decisions yet still noticeable like taking more control of relations with others, more freedom in dialogues to decide if you either like someone or not resulting different interactions and outcomes.

Devs decided to just go scripted way and it is ok, but with some more effort they could make it more complex and much more interesting. Take Cindy for example, we could make her more likable, we could use our powers in dialogues, we could try to manipulate her or use force, that could result in proper Calisto reaction based oh her attitude towards MC which then could result of she either is willing to help us, have sex and being nice overall or being bitchy and aggressive. That is just a simple example but you get my point here. Same goes with Malia, Fabian or even Eloise. Dialogues options are irrelevant really so no matter how interesting characters they might be, they are plain simple if you have no choice of how you can interact with them.

And what I mentioned is impossible to fix now since it is just a bad game design from the start. To implement relation variables the whole game would have to be remade, dialogues included so what I hope for is that the next game devs will do, they will do better job here because story and dialogues itself are really good and interesting most of the time so there is much potential in there. Most of games here are lack of it, offering just good renders and sex scenes (everyone with powerful PC can do that) but writing a good story is something where you need at least some talent and real skill.

Do you really think though if devs had done that, there would have been monthly releases or we would be as far in game as we are now or game would not have been abandoned under it's own weight of having to many variables, renders needed and so on?

Meaningful choices is a great thing if a dev team is big enough to be able and willing to put in the work, else in the end it is just exponential more work, both in coding, conversations to be written and renders to be made. There is a reason why so many games that try to be too ambitious or include too many not really compatible paths (like just showing a woman pregnant or not during three quarters of game) get abandoned. It take a very committed dev to make it work and even he/she would run into trouble having each path going with same content and very slow development of story.

J.R. · Oct 30, 2023

Impurity2937 said:
The real choices are what to do with Carmen and Astrid plus Laurie, rest is scripted and irrelevant really (beside gaining or not useless powers). I agree they are quite meaningful but imo the story lacks of less meaningful decisions yet still noticeable like taking more control of relations with others, more freedom in dialogues to decide if you either like someone or not resulting different interactions and outcomes.

Devs decided to just go scripted way and it is ok, but with some more effort they could make it more complex and much more interesting. Take Cindy for example, we could make her more likable, we could use our powers in dialogues, we could try to manipulate her or use force, that could result in proper Calisto reaction based oh her attitude towards MC which then could result of she either is willing to help us, have sex and being nice overall or being bitchy and aggressive. That is just a simple example but you get my point here. Same goes with Malia, Fabian or even Eloise. Dialogues options are irrelevant really so no matter how interesting characters they might be, they are plain simple if you have no choice of how you can interact with them.

And what I mentioned is impossible to fix now since it is just a bad game design from the start. To implement relation variables the whole game would have to be remade, dialogues included so what I hope for is that the next game devs will do, they will do better job here because story and dialogues itself are really good and interesting most of the time so there is much potential in there. Most of games here are lack of it, offering just good renders and sex scenes (everyone with powerful PC can do that) but writing a good story is something where you need at least some talent and real skill.

Well, it's not the first game they are making (eg ptolemy had quite some done already). So they do know what they can handle or not. Unfortunately have way to often seen new devs started enthusiastic with multiple routes and many meaningfull choices - but after some time the updates took longer and longer or the content for specific routes kinda dried out.

This one here got constant imo good updates for years. And the game had big choices. Of course more at the beginning, now it's actually time to finish the endings for the already made choices since Ep5 is the last one.

Also: take the from you mentioned different options for Cindy: even that would have multiplied the already 2 main routes (with or without Laurie), not to mention the sub routes for Carmen. So for making a new game part there would be then suddenly 4 (or 8) different game routes with different renders. And every added meaningfull choice would split it again.

Impurity2937 · Oct 30, 2023

DA22 said:
Do you really think though if devs had done that, there would have been monthly releases or we would be as far in game as we are now or game would not have been abandoned under it's own weight of having to many variables, renders needed and so on?

Meaningful choices is a great thing if a dev team is big enough to be able and willing to put in the work, else in the end it is just exponential more work, both in coding, conversations to be written and renders to be made. There is a reason why so many games that try to be too ambitious or include too many not really compatible paths (like just showing a woman pregnant or not during three quarters of game) get abandoned. It take a very committed dev to make it work and even he/she would run into trouble having each path going with same content and very slow development of story.

I'm not inventing here wheel anew, there are more than dozen games doing that and somehow they are handling just fine. Of course it is all matter of time and engagement, I have no idea how big dev team here is and if that is their only job, I just gave my personal opinion on that matter.

And I'm not buying this argument about release time. Quality always comes with additional costs, if we want fast updates then we can not expect high quality of the product, after all it would be even faster with just one render and whole story texted on it which I'm sure is not path we want to go with.

J.R. said:
Also: take the from you mentioned different options for Cindy: even that would have multiplied the already 2 main routes (with or without Laurie), not to mention the sub routes for Carmen. So for making a new game part there would be then suddenly 4 (or 8) different game routes with different renders. And every added meaningfull choice would split it again.

I do not agree with that. Let me clarify, by meaningful decisions I mean important ones which will divide story to different paths like Laurie death, killing Carmen or caged Astrid. By less meaningful I mean decisions which do not have big (or any) impact on the story (like a side-quests in RPG games) but gives you feeling of being in control, flirting or not with Malia for example or mentioned Cindy which will have impact on couple dialogue lines, nothing more. Individual relation score system is the most basic thing in AVNs, I just think that expanding it a little bit more would give player more "personal touch" to the story.

DA22 · Oct 30, 2023

Impurity2937 said:
I'm not inventing here wheel anew, there are more than dozen games doing that and somehow they are handling just fine. Of course it is all matter of time and engagement, I have no idea how big dev team here is and if that is their only job, I just gave my personal opinion on that matter.

I do not agree with that. Let me clarify, by meaningful decisions I mean important ones which will divide story to different paths like Laurie death, killing Carmen or caged Astrid. By less meaningful I mean decisions which do not have big (or any) impact on the story (like a side-quests in RPG games) but gives you feeling of being in control, flirting or not with Malia for example or mentioned Cindy which will have impact on couple dialogue lines, nothing more. Individual relation score system is the most basic thing in AVNs, I just think that expanding it a little bit more would give player more "personal touch" to the story.

More than a dozen that really move forward as well, have in depth characters, regularly updated and have good endings? Feel free to name them, I have not ran into too many, even if there are some pretty good games on this site for what their devs try to do with it even if not always to my taste per se. Games with really loads of meaningful choices, well worked out characters and different paths all through game really working and worth to play since also different enough, no major plot holes and have decent development speed and attention to all major LI's and paths as well are extreme rare.

The trouble is that every meaningful choice and path does not just double the amount of work a dev has to do, but with each subsequent one it grows exponentially. Just take allowing choice of each char to have a shaven vagina or not. If do a scene with three females having sex you get quite a few combinations you need to render as a dev.

cause you cannot do 3 time shaven or three times unshaven. Some may have 1 shaven, 2 and 3 not others will have 1 and three unshaven but two not. So it is way more work as having all shaven or unshaven and this is just a very minor choice .... With text works same and then you also will have to code for all those options and test the code works as intended.

Bombmaster · Oct 30, 2023

Impurity2937 said:
I'm not inventing here wheel anew, there are more than dozen games doing that and somehow they are handling just fine. Of course it is all matter of time and engagement, I have no idea how big dev team here is and if that is their only job, I just gave my personal opinion on that matter.

And I'm not buying this argument about release time. Quality always comes with additional costs, if we want fast updates then we can not expect high quality of the product, after all it would be even faster with just one render and whole story texted on it which I'm sure is not path we want to go with.

I do not agree with that. Let me clarify, by meaningful decisions I mean important ones which will divide story to different paths like Laurie death, killing Carmen or caged Astrid. By less meaningful I mean decisions which do not have big (or any) impact on the story (like a side-quests in RPG games) but gives you feeling of being in control, flirting or not with Malia for example or mentioned Cindy which will have impact on couple dialogue lines, nothing more. Individual relation score system is the most basic thing in AVNs, I just think that expanding it a little bit more would give player more "personal touch" to the story.

I remember a dev discussion about some aaa game that even if you put different routes and multi branching the average gamer plays the vanilla route and bails in the end that a low % users navigate.

A good compromise is delving into fetishes and allowing the navigation into the preferred route.
Or you have to make LI exclusive to allow replying to spot differences.

Hard work brother to have real choice.

cxx · Oct 30, 2023

well i checked ep4 ending and have to commit that i have erred and mc didn't make ashes from cindy (could have sworn that he did) but she was forced to give bj to mc (that really "improved" their relationship).

DA22 · Oct 30, 2023

Impurity2937 said:
I get your point and I never said that making relations more complex and rising amount of possible decisions would come without additional costs, it is inevitable. What I'm trying to say is I find this particular game to have a lot of unleashed potential, which due to devs decisions will stay like that. That's the way devs wanted it to look like? That's fine.

Similar path was taken in Chasing sunsets (as far as I remember, has been a while...) for example where story is very linear and the only choices you make are about relations with two girls and still the game is great because of dialogues and story. Giving you more freedom I would put game like Personal assistant where you are forced for some characters but relations may vary a lot, not to mention side-characters where you decide if they are even present in your story. On the other side of scale I would put games like intertwined, already quite old Acting lessons, Once in a lifetime, still in development Ripples or Friends in need, not to mention Being a DIK ofc(but I already see you telling me about update time which is true but also it's because DPC is stubborn one-man-army). Tbh I could give some more examples but I believe I made my point here, in all these games character relations are S-tiers, you got plenty of possibilities how to interact with particular ones, it is up to you if you either like them or not and you take consequences of your actions.

Again, I think Rebirth is very good game, just story-driven with not a lot of freedom.

I like most of those games actually though most have pretty long update schedules and intertwined for example has quite a few plot holes and has been partially rewritten twice already without being able to close them and I do not envy that dev to finish that game in a satisfactory way, she will have her work cut out for her. For me too much drama in game though to stay enjoyable and way too many girls for it to be fun to replay that many time for the changes there in different routes and not enough action on many routes.

Thing is just it is easy for us to always ask more, whether that is to make some content avoidable or add more options and/or valid choices. Unfortunately it is not that easy for devs to deliver and my experience is that games where devs limit choices and go for what they want to deliver tend to turn out best. Off those all lessons got finished and we all know what choice dev put in there and once in a lifetime

Ripples for example does not feel like it is even halfway when comes to most characters and Friends is even earlier stage, think the sister did not even enter game yet. Original Personal assistant got abandoned and think Seath who took it over and made it a new game just decided to make a change now and limit story so he could work more on the chars. Once in a lifetime from Caribdis is finished and a great game, but he def limited choices and story outcomes and besides worked in HS and not Daz.

vartotojas · Oct 30, 2023

Anyone could link me to the last update of EP4 compressed version? Played up to Update11 and and Update12 compressed version is something I can't find and EP5 can't be played unless EP4 is finished?

kinkhunter · Oct 30, 2023

me waiting for a sex scene

c3p0 · Oct 30, 2023

kinkhunter said:
me waiting for a sex scene

Miri, Carmen, Astrid, Calisto, Cindi, Sharon or what do you want?

cxx · Oct 30, 2023

c3p0 said:
Miri, Carmen, Astrid, Calisto, Cindi, Sharon or what do you want?

ancient.

kinkhunter · Oct 31, 2023

c3p0 said:
Miri, Carmen, Astrid, Calisto, Cindi, Sharon or what do you want?

im still at the 3 episode , i like the story its awesome . but this game is not like any porn game that i have played, in almost all games that i have played i always lose interest on completing ,but this game is so awesome.

cxx · Oct 31, 2023

just saw questor's rl version on tv's naked attraction uk (season 6 episode 4).

cxx · Nov 1, 2023

Impurity2937 said:
pic or didn't happen

i'll try to remember take pic on sunday night when it's replayed.

-CookieMonster666- · Nov 1, 2023

This is the same position I always find myself in when changing clothes. The well-known collapsed-from-constipation pose is ideal for pulling on shorts and a shirt before heading out for the day (or night).

RandomGuy99 · Nov 2, 2023

-CookieMonster666- said:
View attachment 3053059

This is the same position I always find myself in when changing clothes. The well-known collapsed-from-constipation pose is ideal for pulling on shorts and a shirt before heading out for the day (or night).

This game have a lot of glitches and weird renders

Impurity2937 · Nov 2, 2023

RandomGuy99 said:
This game have a lot of glitches and weird renders

Well, since they are static renders I wouldn't call it "glitches", more like "dev's artistic abstract vision"

-CookieMonster666- · Nov 2, 2023

Impurity2937 said:
Well, since they are static renders I wouldn't call it "glitches", more like "dev's artistic abstract vision"

Given that they said "weird renders" as well, I wouldn't think "a lot of glitches" referred to that, but to the game's coding. We've had people report the game treating characters as if they were still alive when they weren't, for example.

Impurity2937 · Nov 2, 2023

-CookieMonster666- said:
Given that they said "weird renders" as well, I wouldn't think "a lot of glitches" referred to that, but to the game's coding. We've had people report the game treating characters as if they were still alive when they weren't, for example.

Oh yeah, I remember. About that, if someone experiences this stuff (I had un-living Laurie when she supposed to be dead) then make sure you got hotfixes (c3p0 mentioned them couple pages earlier) installed and with no mods (they seem to have its own issues)

Eonor · Nov 3, 2023

Updated my compressed Android port of Rebirth Episode 5 along with Koga3's multimod to Update 7. The previous episodes are linked below as well.

Got some basic gestures loaded in: swipe up for save menu, swipe down to hide UI, swipe left to rollback and swipe right to skip. Save files are now stored in the Documents folder. This sometimes means that you may need to close and re-open the port after installing so the save folder is properly created.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make the multi persistent save thing work (works a treat for PC but doesn't work by default on Android), but Koga3's mod allows you to continue each episode with default choices made and you can change your name and what choices were made using his cheat menu.

Please let me know if you encounter any issues with the ports and I'll see what I can do to get them sorted.

Rebirth Episode 1: Pixeldrain -