Ren'Py Seeds of Chaos [v0.4.08] [Vénus Noire]
- Aug 12, 2018
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Holy shit, with over 2k patreons and steam sales this is just mind boggling. If I take into account the fact that there are sill 5 untouched regions, this game will finish in no less than a decade lmao. Not to mention it's gonna be one of the most expensive game ever to develop.
- Sep 18, 2017
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More time to ''develop'', more money... or if you want to finish the game faster, throw more money at it I guess lol...
- Jan 25, 2020
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- May 8, 2017
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I recognize that the sheer scope of the game, should it maintain the current model, is frankly speaking unwieldy to work with. As we ponder Act 2, I do believe we will be looking into streamlining the content so the sideplots play a bigger role in the overall narrative.
It is, however, a misleading point of view. Saying that they're at the same point after 2 years would suggest that they didn't progress at all. What happened, instead, is that they rushed to go to the endpoint of part 1 (the fall of Rastedel), leaving big plotholes and incomplete storylines on the way, in a rather patchwork development. Filling the significantly large gaps and changing the approach to the development of the game has been quite the work!
This is also half truth.
Game in development since 2016 so it was not by any means "rushed" to anything.
Game progress slow but steady.
SoC was envisioned by Arioch as much more ambitious project but along the way hard reality knocked at the door and many ideas was thrown away, like we can see RPG elements (equipment, character lvl and stats that some form of battle system).
They were also inexperienced with Ren-py and code was terrible so they reworked a lot of it, the same with art design all the old CG got face lift.
Actually they still work on implementing reasonable map.
So basically they made some mistakes and didn't plane properly how to tie everything together from the beginning + change thier mind few times on some of the old stuff. Rewrite lots of older stories.
This why we see no progress of main plot line.
The problem is they could have easily drop fey or goblin side plots and move on with main story but they keep on adding new optional stuff that create this painfully slow no progress feeling.
This why we probably wont see any story moving forward in any meaningful way for another year or so.
From what I can see from not playing the game for a while, I think version 3.02 then playing a bit of version of 3.07 the game has had a major rework in so many aspects that its almost a completely different game.
Just the intro of the game was way different in almost every aspect.
While the basic structure of the intro was the same, Rowan talks to elder, goes home fucks Alexia, Jezra tricks him into the forest and fights orcs, he rushes back to town to find it being laid to waste, he travels to Bloodmeen, gets captured, and then helps capture the town with the elder again.
Almost every single part of those scenes had been rewritten and the choices you made gave you more unique dialogue. I was surprised at the part when the elder finally dies in 3.07 that you now have the option too make the elder be partially sympathetic to Rowan compared to the original scene where the elder was just completely spiteful and it felt so cold blooded to kill the elder. Also makes the elder feel a lot more wiser and a better character than just the overused trope of 1 dimensional with no personality random NPCs only purpose is to die and be emotional damage to main character.
They also changed the dungeon scene when Rowan first gets captured, its way shorter and less repetitive, or maybe I just chose to give in faster and didn't have to see the extended scene of where they repeatedly tortured him for no reason for weeks on end despite wanting to submit earlier on.
But point is choices actually matter now compared to before where your choice didn't matter much and only gave you like a couple line of extra dialogue then merging back into the same exact dialogue versus now where the scenes plays out completely different.
They also redid a lot of the art to make it look more consistent, but some it is still mismatched. I also personally don't like some of the reworked art cause they made Rowan so thick and beefy compared to his original artwork where he was skinnier and a bit more feminine looking. But that's beside the point.
They also redid the trait / RPG system, which I haven't gotten to yet but look forward to.
So it is pretty evident that they did a ton of work in the past 2 years. So while the ending point of the story hasn't progressed, the details between the start and end of story has been almost completely rewritten from what I can tell.
Just the intro of the game was way different in almost every aspect.
While the basic structure of the intro was the same, Rowan talks to elder, goes home fucks Alexia, Jezra tricks him into the forest and fights orcs, he rushes back to town to find it being laid to waste, he travels to Bloodmeen, gets captured, and then helps capture the town with the elder again.
Almost every single part of those scenes had been rewritten and the choices you made gave you more unique dialogue. I was surprised at the part when the elder finally dies in 3.07 that you now have the option too make the elder be partially sympathetic to Rowan compared to the original scene where the elder was just completely spiteful and it felt so cold blooded to kill the elder. Also makes the elder feel a lot more wiser and a better character than just the overused trope of 1 dimensional with no personality random NPCs only purpose is to die and be emotional damage to main character.
They also changed the dungeon scene when Rowan first gets captured, its way shorter and less repetitive, or maybe I just chose to give in faster and didn't have to see the extended scene of where they repeatedly tortured him for no reason for weeks on end despite wanting to submit earlier on.
But point is choices actually matter now compared to before where your choice didn't matter much and only gave you like a couple line of extra dialogue then merging back into the same exact dialogue versus now where the scenes plays out completely different.
They also redid a lot of the art to make it look more consistent, but some it is still mismatched. I also personally don't like some of the reworked art cause they made Rowan so thick and beefy compared to his original artwork where he was skinnier and a bit more feminine looking. But that's beside the point.
They also redid the trait / RPG system, which I haven't gotten to yet but look forward to.
So it is pretty evident that they did a ton of work in the past 2 years. So while the ending point of the story hasn't progressed, the details between the start and end of story has been almost completely rewritten from what I can tell.
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It's actually just the intro that got the overhaul. What you get afterwards remains roughly the same, with some bits pruned and some added.
It's pretty easy to check and compare if one's willing -- the free build of the game at itch.io is 0.2.47, from 3 years ago (it was posted in September 2019)
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Even if it is just the intro it shows that the devs actually care about the quality of the product rather than doing things to just get it done.
The fact that they redid any of the art amazes me cause usually that is the thing that developers can't change as easy as dialogue. And the fact that they redid the intro also shows that they aren't just going to just keep churning out content for the sake of content. That they are willing to redo parts that they view the game is weak on and polish it up.
So far the only thing I think they are lacking in is a few quality of life interface chances, otherwise I think this game is the perfect example of devs who are actually passionate about their project rather than just churning out a product.
For instance in the gallery not sure why they only have back and forth arrows for pages instead of also including page numbers like how the save screen has so you don't have to click through like 30 pages everytime you want to view a a unlocked CG.
They also still have some pretty obvious spelling errors here and there but not going to knock them for that too had.
To me it's problematic, because it shows what i'd consider a misunderstanding of what's ultimately purpose of development, and that's delivering a completed product in timely manner. The amount of resources you have at your disposal is limited; allocating them to redo existing bits and pieces when you don't yet have the complete picture (or even sketch really) how the entire thing is going to play out --this including the possibility you'll come to conclusion down the road these redone pieces need to be changed yet again to match or facilitate what was added-- it's something that borders on squandering these resources.
Redoing content is no better from churning out content from this point of view. It can be even considered worse, because after the fact you're still where you were and not anywhere closer to completing your goal. That you're looking a bit prettier doesn't change it.
I disagree because every project always has rough drafts and revisions. The biggest example of squandering resources is just doing things to get them finished and then abandoning the project to just start a new one again from scratch that has the same exact growing pains.
We see all the time with games these days where the game industry hasn't advance in terms of polish and game design, where every single game is remade from scratch with little to no polish instead of building on the pre-existing work. Using Total War game franchise and Farming Simulator, where they essentially remake the same game over and over from scratch with no real progress to simply release the game to meet arbitrary deadlines. Instead of just working and improving the current game to make it the perfect one.
Yes, but you need to have that actual draft first. Not stop in the middle of making it and instead obsess whether a shirt of one of the characters has nice enough wrinkles, focusing on it rather than get that draft done.
You're completely wrong if you believe titles like Total War or Farming Simulator are redoing things from scratch with each installment, vs iterating on what they already have. Or that they don't go through rounds of polish while they're developed.
Talking about a narrative perspective, the biggest problem of any writer of a story is the development or construction of the characters and how they fit in the world, for an example, the first version of The Hobbit needed to changed a few lines in the interaction between Bilbo & Gollum to fit in the nature of the world and One Ring on it described in it's sequel The Lord of The Rings. It's something that can happen to anyone that's developing a complex story.
So knowing this, i hoped for this Arioch or whoever responsible had done main story in a .docx file stored in his PC finished until ACT III, and whatever side stories that is included or planning must fit on it, moreover than just adding more porn or more gore, some will be grateful for the narrative coherence of the characters, some here wrote a lot about that before (including me), the game still have enough space to cover them by adding or changing some lines carefully.
I'm in the goblin arc and I have only one option left in the goblin camp that repeats and that is to talk with Tue-Row. How am I suppose to continue the arc or did I misread and isnt the goblin recruitment arc finished yet?
- Jan 13, 2019
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god i hope im still alive by then
it will be pretty funny if i kick the bucket before jezera does it in the game
- May 8, 2019
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Would be cool if we got something like path tree, to see which path we did and which we didn't like in Detroit: Become Human
- Aug 14, 2017
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It would be cool if/when they have established paths/endings since right now we can assume that there is a "good path" where Rowan is going against the Twins but it's gonna branch like hell if you choose the corrupt path