Recommending Story-first games

[Finuee]

Short stories are an art form that isn't represented enough in VPNs. It's cool that you're doing one.

On your thread, that guy who had to post ten times that he doesn't like purple...<rolls eyes>

Tlaero

In his defence, he kept getting quoted.

I took a quick peek at it, just a couple of scenes (because otherwise it would have to wait for too long), and I really liked it.
Two positive opinions off the top of my head:

• I like how you portray a couple that has some friction in the relationship, without making it a big subject (at least not for as far as I played). So many aspiring writers tend to go all in, either everything is great, or one part of the couple is a cheating asshole. To see a realistic dialogue between two people with slightly different goals was so refreshing!
• I like the cutscene indicator. All Ren'py games that has animations or sequences in should have one!

Thanks! That's what we aimed for, friction instead of broken. I'm glad you enjoyed that.

The cutscene indicator was the result of our playtester's feedback. He missed a couple of moments because he didn't wait, then got frustrated waiting in other places to make sure it wasn't a sequence. So we came up with this idea. All kudos to him. Moral of the story: get playtesters and get feedback.

 

[Tlaero]

Thanks! That's what we aimed for, friction instead of broken. I'm glad you enjoyed that.

I just played it and I also really enjoyed it.

What is the division of labor between you and your partner? Does one of you write the text/story and the other make the images, or do you both share both tasks?


Feedback on the story:
Like kotte I liked that we're at the start of relationship friction, not deep in it. (Yet? We'll see in future chapters.)

Similarly, I like that it's about people who are struggling to make a living with social media, but they're already making progress (albeit slowly) instead of "I have a dream but I'm lazy and haven't lifted a finger yet" that you get on a lot of VNs.

It's great that you teased the "spooky" part early. That shows us that this will be more than just a "Slice of Life." The sooner you get your hooks into the readers, the more of them you'll keep. And you did that well. I half want you to show the ghost even earlier (not seen by the characters, though), but I think you probably cover that in the introduction where you say that there are spooky elements.

The tags suggest that both the man and the woman are going to be POV characters. If done well, that's a higher level of writing than you get in most VNs. The downside for you is that many players hate multi-viewpoint games. If they can't self-insert they don't want to play. I suspect that people on this thread will appreciate it, though. I certainly will.

Something to be careful with is finding the right amount of the woman's fixation with social media stats. I found her a little bit annoying, but you shouldn't change it. This is clearly an intentional character flaw, and hopefully this is the story about how she fixes that flaw. So she should be annoying now. Just make sure you don't go too far and turn her from a sympathetic character into an annoying one.


Feedback on the images:
I like the imagery. The flower backgrounds and menu choices, etc.

The characters are attractive, and I'm pleased that she has human-sized breasts. That's depressingly rare in VNs.

I like her hair color. It says a lot about her character.

Overall, if I had to sum up the visuals in a word, it would be "classy."

On the negative side, the visuals and the writing seem to be a little out of agreement, particularly on the part of the man. His expressions seem to suggest that he's more annoyed with her than the dialog implies. Two particular examples are when they're at dinner and, especially, when they're watching a movie and she's looking at her phone. He IS annoyed in those scenes, but he looks super annoyed. If my lover looked at me like that, I would drop everything and try to figure out what's wrong. I know that subtlety of expression is hard, particularly with DAZ, but that's a good avenue for growth for this artist.


Overall:
This feels like it's going to be more "Erotica" than "Porn" which is good in my book. Again, many players will disagree. I hope you stick to your vision and don't bend to constant drone of demands for kink after kink that you'll get.

Tlaero

 

[Finuee]

I just played it and I also really enjoyed it.

Oh my god, thanks so much for such a thorough reply and commentary!!

What is the division of labor between you and your partner? Does one of you write the text/story and the other make the images, or do you both share both tasks?

We do the writing and dialogues together. Kuvira does the renders and I do post-processing on them. I also handle UI, coding and sound design.

Feedback on the story:
Like kotte I liked that we're at the start of relationship friction, not deep in it. (Yet? We'll see in future chapters.)

Similarly, I like that it's about people who are struggling to make a living with social media, but they're already making progress (albeit slowly) instead of "I have a dream but I'm lazy and haven't lifted a finger yet" that you get on a lot of VNs.

It's great that you teased the "spooky" part early. That shows us that this will be more than just a "Slice of Life." The sooner you get your hooks into the readers, the more of them you'll keep. And you did that well. I half want you to show the ghost even earlier (not seen by the characters, though), but I think you probably cover that in the introduction where you say that there are spooky elements.

The tags suggest that both the man and the woman are going to be POV characters. If done well, that's a higher level of writing than you get in most VNs. The downside for you is that many players hate multi-viewpoint games. If they can't self-insert they don't want to play. I suspect that people on this thread will appreciate it, though. I certainly will.

In a sense they already are, in that you choose for a different one in each scene. But they'll have scenes in the future where they're not together, which will make this more evident.

Something to be careful with is finding the right amount of the woman's fixation with social media stats. I found her a little bit annoying, but you shouldn't change it. This is clearly an intentional character flaw, and hopefully this is the story about how she fixes that flaw. So she should be annoying now. Just make sure you don't go too far and turn her from a sympathetic character into an annoying one.

That's the exact idea. I know we're treading a fine line, but I think it's necessary. His character flaw is much more subtle and less annoying, I know.

Feedback on the images:
I like the imagery. The flower backgrounds and menu choices, etc.

OMG thanks!!

The characters are attractive, and I'm pleased that she has human-sized breasts. That's depressingly rare in VNs.

I like her hair color. It says a lot about her character.

Overall, if I had to sum up the visuals in a word, it would be "classy."

Also thanks for this. We were definitely aiming at something more realistic, visual-wise. And that said something about the characters.

And I personally also wanted an attractive male MC, not a hung or a husk or a hulk. Which is also depressingly rare in AVNs.

On the negative side, the visuals and the writing seem to be a little out of agreement, particularly on the part of the man. His expressions seem to suggest that he's more annoyed with her than the dialog implies. Two particular examples are when they're at dinner and, especially, when they're watching a movie and she's looking at her phone. He IS annoyed in those scenes, but he looks super annoyed. If my lover looked at me like that, I would drop everything and try to figure out what's wrong. I know that subtlety of expression is hard, particularly with DAZ, but that's a good avenue for growth for this artist.

I'll talk with Kuvi about this. We did want him to be more annoyed than he lets on, so the idea kinda was to have his expression show how annoyed he actually was, while he was passive-aggressive acting like he was less annoyed. But maybe we overdid it. I'm less worried about the scene in the room, because she's not even looking at him most of the time and so wouldn't notice, but she would at the restaurant.

We'll work more on the expressions, though. It's really hard to have the level of subtlety needed to mimic real human emotions. But we'll try to improve as much as we can!

Overall:
This feels like it's going to be more "Erotica" than "Porn" which is good in my book. Again, many players will disagree. I hope you stick to your vision and don't bend to constant drone of demands for kink after kink that you'll get.

Tlaero

Yeah, the subtitle is "An eerie erotic short story".

I know the story is not gonna be to everybody's liking, but then, what story is?

The good part is, this is not a source of income, but a passion project. Kuvi has another game that's his flagship game and the one he publishes in his Patreon. And I don't have a Patreon at all. This one is a side-project, and is completely free. So we have no financial pressure to adapt the story to popular demand. And even if it's not fully written, we did the outline and structure for the whole story before we started, so we know where we want it to go.

 

[jufot]

I just released the first update of a collaboration game with another dev, and I think it kinda fits the theme of the thread. So I thought I might share it here. The game's name is Feeneera.

I can only echo the earlier remarks. Your protagonists feel like real, flawed people. Tlaero's points on how they differ from other VNs are on point.

The notes in the script depict the hotel's owner as "smiling" and "neutral looking", and Lukas has a weird feeling about him, but he looks cartoonishly evil to me.

But that's a minor point and this is a really good start Finuee! Is the story written already?

 

[Finuee]

I can only echo the earlier remarks. Your protagonists feel like real, flawed people. Tlaero's points on how they differ from other VNs are on point.

The notes in the script depict the hotel's owner as "smiling" and "neutral looking", and Lukas has a weird feeling about him, but he looks cartoonishly evil to me.

But that's a minor point and this is a really good start Finuee! Is the story written already?

Sometimes things change between when we write the notes and when the renders are done...

Thanks for the nice words. The outline of the story is fully written, but the dialogues aren't. Meaning that the story is fully plotted and planned, but we write it one chapter at a time.

 

[jufot]

the story is fully plotted and planned, but we write it one chapter at a time.

Perfect, that's what I'd like to hear! I'm looking forward to it

 

[Tlaero]

We do the writing and dialogues together. Kuvira does the renders and I do post-processing on them. I also handle UI, coding and sound design.

That's a cool division of labor.

I'm always impressed by people who can do everything and do it well. Mortze and I are quite specialized. I can give feedback on something like subtle facial clues, but I couldn't actually do the things I suggest. I'm miserable when it comes to visuals. (Fortunately, I can rely on him to be amazing there.)

Regarding your not having a patreon, you might consider getting one, even if you didn't charge anything. Patreon is a different audience than we have here, and it's always good to reach more people. It would give people who don't want to participate in a pirate porn site a way to follow your work.

Patreon also has a mechanism where a creator can recommend other creators. I keep getting people who ask me to recommend them. I download their game, see the beachball-sized breasts, and roll my eyes. But I'd recommend your patreon in a heartbeat.

Tlaero

 

[Finuee]

That's a cool division of labor.

I'm always impressed by people who can do everything and do it well. Mortze and I are quite specialized. I can give feedback on something like subtle facial clues, but I couldn't actually do the things I suggest. I'm miserable when it comes to visuals. (Fortunately, I can rely on him to be amazing there.)

Regarding your not having a patreon, you might consider getting one, even if you didn't charge anything. Patreon is a different audience than we have here, and it's always good to reach more people. It would give people who don't want to participate in a pirate porn site a way to follow your work.

Patreon also has a mechanism where a creator can recommend other creators. I keep getting people who ask me to recommend them. I download their game, see the beachball-sized breasts, and roll my eyes. But I'd recommend your patreon in a heartbeat.

Tlaero

Maybe I should, but I would definitely not charge anything. I didn't know you could have a Patreon without charging people. Then again, I'm not too fond of Patreon itself. I was considering setting up an itchio, but I heard they're not too friendly to NSFW games.

I'm also in awe of people who can do the whole package on their own and do everything well, by the way. My main project is something I'm doing alone, and learning to draw to be able to make it is taking me forever.

 

[Tlaero]

Maybe I should, but I would definitely not charge anything. I didn't know you could have a Patreon without charging people. Then again, I'm not too fond of Patreon itself. I was considering setting up an itchio, but I heard they're not too friendly to NSFW games.

I'm also in awe of people who can do the whole package on their own and do everything well, by the way. My main project is something I'm doing alone, and learning to draw to be able to make it is taking me forever.

You can allow free users, and you get to set up the cost tiers. You also get to decide whether to charge monthly or per release. They might make you need to have at least one tier for money, but you could set that to $1 and not charge until you want to.

Itch.io is a game store. You outright sell your games there.

I tried to learn to draw once. It's a long road. I respect your ambition!

Tlaero