VN Ren'Py Straight!? [Revamp v0.14.0] [Aaryn]

[againsthaters]

Hello Aaryn and fellow posters

I have been a member on this site for some time, but this is my first post on the forums. I really felt compelled to post something in recognition to Aaryn and this amazing game. Throughout my time on this site, I have played many games, from several genres, and they have been fun, but this game really touched me personally.

As a Bi person in a very conservative family/church/school I really struggled with my sexuality, I was constantly embarrassed by who and what I was attracted to, and even though I am no longer in that environment, I still struggle with those issues. Because of the issues with my sexuality acceptance, and my social anxiety I have always had issues meeting people and having any sort of relationships.

This game touched so many points of my real-life experience, including lying about previous relationships and sexual experiences to seem normal; Fear of meeting new people and starting a relationship; and struggling with who I am. Even though this game is fiction, it has really helped me feel a bit better about myself.

Outside of all of the personal stuff (sorry if I went too far with that ) this game is really fun, and really hot

I am really impressed with what you have created, and really look forward to what is coming in the future.

Much Love,
-Frank

Know that you are not alone ... That you are not the only one who will have lived such a situation.
We are all human no matter what, and no matter what who thinks or says. - everyone has a heart that must be cherished and/or appreciated at his/her true value.
For my part I still had the chance to have enough courage to blakmail all my demonically catolic familly/entourage that I had in the US, and to leave on the other side of the Atlantic to start my life over as soon as I have reached my majority (adulthood for Portugal), I divorced the girl with whom I was forced to marry, subsequently married the one who has always been my best friend (I always loved him with all my heart, for whom I would be ready to do anything, even to sacrifice my life for him, then he almost failed to do it for me, fortunately things were arranged before reaching this extreme ...), and shortly later recovered my daughter ... - and then over time I built a blended homoparental family.
Today I am a very happy 45-year-old father and grandfather alongside an exceptionally perfect man.
(with my ex-wife who is lesbian, we have become great friends to the point that she will have accepted to be the surrogate mother of my 4 others children whom I raised with my husband)
I give you a big hug.
Take good care of yourself.
LOVES

 

[notfrank]

Know that you are not alone ... That you are not the only one who will have lived such a situation.
We are all human no matter what, and no matter what who thinks or says. - everyone has a heart that must be cherished and/or appreciated at his/her true value.
For my part I still had the chance to have enough courage to blakmail all my demonically catolic familly/entourage that I had in the US, and to leave on the other side of the Atlantic to start my life over as soon as I have reached my majority (adulthood for Portugal), I divorced the girl with whom I was forced to marry, subsequently married the one who has always been my best friend (I always loved him with all my heart, for whom I would be ready to do anything, even to sacrifice my life for him, then he almost failed to do it for me, fortunately things were arranged before reaching this extreme ...), and shortly later recovered my daughter ... - and then over time I built a blended homoparental family.
Today I am a very happy 45-year-old father and grandfather alongside an exceptionally perfect man.
(with my ex-wife who is lesbian, we have become great friends to the point that she will have accepted to be the surrogate mother of my 4 others children whom I raised with my husband)
I give you a big hug.
Take good care of yourself.
LOVES

Hello LC_AE-JohnEP Thank you for sharing, its always nice to hear stories from others. I am sorry to hear that you had those struggles, and I am glad to hear that you are with someone great now. I wish you all the best.

Love,
-Frank

 

[temp2017]

One of my favourite games

 

[Aaryn]

Know that you are not alone ... That you are not the only one who will have lived such a situation.
We are all human no matter what, and no matter what who thinks or says. - everyone has a heart that must be cherished and/or appreciated at his/her true value.
For my part I still had the chance to have enough courage to blakmail all my demonically catolic familly/entourage that I had in the US, and to leave on the other side of the Atlantic to start my life over as soon as I have reached my majority (adulthood for Portugal), I divorced the girl with whom I was forced to marry, subsequently married the one who has always been my best friend (I always loved him with all my heart, for whom I would be ready to do anything, even to sacrifice my life for him, then he almost failed to do it for me, fortunately things were arranged before reaching this extreme ...), and shortly later recovered my daughter ... - and then over time I built a blended homoparental family.
Today I am a very happy 45-year-old father and grandfather alongside an exceptionally perfect man.
(with my ex-wife who is lesbian, we have become great friends to the point that she will have accepted to be the surrogate mother of my 4 others children whom I raised with my husband)
I give you a big hug.
Take good care of yourself.
LOVES

Hello LC_AE-JohnEP Thank you for sharing, its always nice to hear stories from others. I am sorry to hear that you had those struggles, and I am glad to hear that you are with someone great now. I wish you all the best.

Love,
-Frank

While there are a litany of reasons that I've written this story, one of the major reasons was to just try and inspire people by showing how difficult of a journey it is for some people. Zack's resistance can be annoying to some readers but I think all of us can easily become frustrated with things that we don't understand. For some people, the journey of coming out is simpler for myriad reasons. Other stories, like the one LC_AE-JohnEP shared, are deeply difficult and it pains me to hear them. You have my respect and I appreciate you without ever having known you. I get a lot of stories like this in my DMs and there's just really no way to ever convey how motivating and emotional they are. I also want to say i appreciate you notfrank for just chiming in and supporting others like this. We've had a lot of this on the discord and it's nice to see our little corner of the universe isn't as toxic as many other parts of the internet.

 

[Palor]

Hello Aaryn

I decided to post after reading your behind the scenes post about your motivation creating this game.
Honestly, I cannot really find the right word, but I truly think you are brilliant. I mean it.
For 2 years now, I have been caring for my comatose mother at home with my sister and I feel like I'm living in a f*cking prison every single day. Beside taking care of my mother I'm in my last year of medical school, so I have about 10 exams for the next month. I'm also 26-year-old gay man, who hasn't had one relationship so far and only had a few sexual encounters (I'm quite good looking, just have a lot of issues). Some of the problems portrayed in the game are still relevant to me at the age of 26.
I'm only writing all of this because, recently I thought a lot about how to make other people understand what I am going through. They say they understand, they try to understand, sometimes they manage to understand on a cognitive level, but they cannot feel what I feel thus cannot REALLY understand, so I feel quite alone and depressed.
When I read that you wrote the game partially because you wanted people to understand what you dealt with, and maybe helping them use this knowledge for solving there own problems....I was simply astounded.
For some time it became clear that I want to become a psychiatrist after I get my diploma, so I can help people with serious problems who suffered mentally due to Life being the bitch it can sometimes be. Suddenly finding someone who managed to give me an answer/example for both of my questions (how can I make people understand?, how can I help others going through similar shit), it means so f*cking much to me. I can really put it in words why, maybe just knowing it is possible, means a lot.
The story is superb, the characters are well-made both inside and out, the sex stuff is a bit slow but perfectly makes sense in the setting and it is very easy to empathize with the characters.
I have to confess I read through the game in one night, I was up until 6 in the morning. For a few hours it gave me such a fun time with all the dynamics between Zack and Braden and sometimes I wanted to shake the monitor when Zack screwed up with the lying stuff. I found it really hot when they were totally, 100% honest with each other. By the way although I'm 26 and I feel like 18 is a little too young for me, Braden is just the ideal for me regarding both appearances and personality. All that smirking and being a little creep with the scheming stuff (I choose the pervy route). I was like "I wish someone hot and cute would put this much work into being in a relationship with me" At one point I started to worry that I'm more attracted to a character than I should be
The point of all this rambling is that I am blown away by your creativity and passion for creating this amazing game. I wish I could reach this many people in he future in such a creative, fun and efficient way as you did. Unfortunately at this moment I cannot contribute to this project but in the near future it is 100% that I will help so you can continue and finish this amazing (cannot stress it enough how so) project anyway you want and see fit.

Sorry for the long message, just wanted to express how grateful and happy I am to have found your story

Edit: I rewatched some scenes... I have to say.. I love, I mean LOVE the glasses on Braden for some reason I had to share this information with everyone

 

[jynxjunhoe]

hi, just wondering.. im kinda new to this game, how often is this game with their updates? like once a month or once every 2 months?

 

[MysteryZoneGames]

This game was pretty cool, though I have to say that this took a bit long to get to the good stuff

 

[original yoda i am]

is there any sex scenes in the game

 

[Lebronb]

Android Port please?

 

[Aaryn]

sorry about the slow response over here. I'm going to catch up responses when I get a chance. I did wanna share this over here as well though.

In contrast to most of the games that get abandoned here, game production for this project will be going full-time in August. See details here

You must be registered to see the links

 

[alessandrolicious]

sorry about the slow response over here. I'm going to catch up responses when I get a chance. I did wanna share this over here as well though.

In contrast to most of the games that get abandoned here, game production for this project will be going full-time in August. See details here

You must be registered to see the links

That was THE BOMB! I am so ecstatic of the bright future to come with this game and in your game developing/creation career which will benefit us, your patrons, most especially. I kind of feel sad tho to read the part where you said that the game is coming close to its end. B-b-but, isn't it just v.020 yet? Isn't v.020 still a ways from v1.0?

 

[Aaryn]

That was THE BOMB! I am so ecstatic of the bright future to come with this game and in your game developing/creation career which will benefit us, your patrons, most especially. I kind of feel sad tho to read the part where you said that the game is coming close to its end. B-b-but, isn't it just v.020 yet? Isn't v.020 still a ways from v1.0?

So the numbering on updates is kinda off because tbh i still dont know what i'm doing, lol. so I started the first update with v.01 and have gone in sequence since then with the newest update that i'm working on being the 20th release. I anticipate that 21 will be the last update with the end of the story. After that, I will take time to go back and redo the entire game. I'll talk more in detail about this later but basically you could look at it as an overhaul on graphics (bringing the beginning CGs up to the quality of the end ones), in addition to fixing the quality of the writing at the beginning and fixing some of the gameplay. I also plan to actually try and do some side stuff and add some new sequences in that wont actually change the course of the game but just be supplemental. So think of it as an enhanced director's cut i guess

 

[Aaryn]

I'm catching up responses:

hi, just wondering.. im kinda new to this game, how often is this game with their updates? like once a month or once every 2 months?

it used to be monthly when i started but that really rushed things and I ended up having to delete content from the story just to make the deadline so the progject suffered. As it's moved on, updates have increasingly taken longer because I'm spending more time trying to take the project serious and learn new things to improve it. In short: it really depends. It should speed up in the near future though because I'm focusing on this as my sole job starting in August

This game was pretty cool, though I have to say that this took a bit long to get to the good stuff

the main focus was to sorta make people forget about the adult content and validate that it's ok to have story in this kind of a game. I couldn't just jump to sex stuff to make the story work ya know

is there any sex scenes in the game

yes, but it's a slow burn and very long at this point. it's very common that people DM me and say they started playing for the sex stuff then forgot and just focused on the story but there's definitely nudity

Android Port please?

Actually, it's in the works. I have a copy now that a fan made. I just need some people to test it

 

[Aaryn]

Hello Aaryn

I decided to post after reading your behind the scenes post about your motivation creating this game.
Honestly, I cannot really find the right word, but I truly think you are brilliant. I mean it.
For 2 years now, I have been caring for my comatose mother at home with my sister and I feel like I'm living in a f*cking prison every single day. Beside taking care of my mother I'm in my last year of medical school, so I have about 10 exams for the next month. I'm also 26-year-old gay man, who hasn't had one relationship so far and only had a few sexual encounters (I'm quite good looking, just have a lot of issues). Some of the problems portrayed in the game are still relevant to me at the age of 26.
I'm only writing all of this because, recently I thought a lot about how to make other people understand what I am going through. They say they understand, they try to understand, sometimes they manage to understand on a cognitive level, but they cannot feel what I feel thus cannot REALLY understand, so I feel quite alone and depressed.
When I read that you wrote the game partially because you wanted people to understand what you dealt with, and maybe helping them use this knowledge for solving there own problems....I was simply astounded.
For some time it became clear that I want to become a psychiatrist after I get my diploma, so I can help people with serious problems who suffered mentally due to Life being the bitch it can sometimes be. Suddenly finding someone who managed to give me an answer/example for both of my questions (how can I make people understand?, how can I help others going through similar shit), it means so f*cking much to me. I can really put it in words why, maybe just knowing it is possible, means a lot.
The story is superb, the characters are well-made both inside and out, the sex stuff is a bit slow but perfectly makes sense in the setting and it is very easy to empathize with the characters.
I have to confess I read through the game in one night, I was up until 6 in the morning. For a few hours it gave me such a fun time with all the dynamics between Zack and Braden and sometimes I wanted to shake the monitor when Zack screwed up with the lying stuff. I found it really hot when they were totally, 100% honest with each other. By the way although I'm 26 and I feel like 18 is a little too young for me, Braden is just the ideal for me regarding both appearances and personality. All that smirking and being a little creep with the scheming stuff (I choose the pervy route). I was like "I wish someone hot and cute would put this much work into being in a relationship with me" At one point I started to worry that I'm more attracted to a character than I should be
The point of all this rambling is that I am blown away by your creativity and passion for creating this amazing game. I wish I could reach this many people in he future in such a creative, fun and efficient way as you did. Unfortunately at this moment I cannot contribute to this project but in the near future it is 100% that I will help so you can continue and finish this amazing (cannot stress it enough how so) project anyway you want and see fit.

Sorry for the long message, just wanted to express how grateful and happy I am to have found your story

Edit: I rewatched some scenes... I have to say.. I love, I mean LOVE the glasses on Braden for some reason I had to share this information with everyone

It's been forever since you posted this and i had some personal stuff going on that kept pulling me away. Truth is that I get very personal messages like this that really mean a lot to me and I want to respond lengthy and appropriately but then sometimes get sidetracked and don't have the time to really dedicate to giving a thoughtful and thorough response. But i really appreciated this post and I'm humbled that the game reached you and sorta validated your feelings. I wrote that post for the Patreon site because I feel like a lot of people create adult games just for the cash flow or just to be fucking horny. The reason that adult content exists in this game is because it's about sexuality and I wanted to show that. I wanted to not hide things and I think part of the tease of the game is knowing that it's adult...that eventually you may get to see what you want to see and that entices the player the same way that it does the characters. It's like simulating empathy and I like that as a tool. I really have put my soul into this and really put my own feelings on blast, not because they're more valid than others but because i never really clicked with the media representation for gay dudes. I wanted something that I could vibe with, where there were bro guys that struggled with the same things that I did and slowly found resolution in that as I did. So the arcs here aren't suggestions but just the journey for acceptance that I found. So i wanted to share that. Given your interest in psychiatry, this probably does vibe with you and I appreciate that. I have a background in clinical psych so it checks my boxes too (i've also mixed therapy techniques into the writing in hopes that would make people thing). it's a different approach but I'm ok with it and it's been a pleasure reading such personal reactions from people so thanks for that. also sorry about the slow response. i put off responding to your personal post way too long

 

[alessandrolicious]

So the numbering on updates is kinda off because tbh i still dont know what i'm doing, lol. so I started the first update with v.01 and have gone in sequence since then with the newest update that i'm working on being the 20th release. I anticipate that 21 will be the last update with the end of the story. After that, I will take time to go back and redo the entire game. I'll talk more in detail about this later but basically you could look at it as an overhaul on graphics (bringing the beginning CGs up to the quality of the end ones), in addition to fixing the quality of the writing at the beginning and fixing some of the gameplay. I also plan to actually try and do some side stuff and add some new sequences in that wont actually change the course of the game but just be supplemental. So think of it as an enhanced director's cut i guess

Oooh, I see. Where does the difference in pervy route and decent (?) route come in?

 

[Aaryn]

Oooh, I see. Where does the difference in pervy route and decent (?) route come in?

it's very subtle throughout the game. essentially it's the same base story but the subtle changes will change the tone of the story. If you want to see the major change, just play through the last update using the other route.

 

[ExhibitionistAsian]

are there any sex scenes?

 

[Aaryn]

are there any sex scenes?

yes, but they're in context with the story content. this isn't a game where you just try and figure out how to fuck the next person over and over

 

[Dudu_Martins]

yes, but they're in context with the story content. this isn't a game where you just try and figure out how to fuck the next person over and over

And let just say, its an amazing history.

 

[againsthaters]

And let just say, its an amazing history.

Well ... - you know what Novel means, right?
For me it was very clear from the start.