Unreal Engine Completed Subverse [v1.1.1] [Studio Fow]

[Thrway8113]

Not to sound too pedantic but it's technically not NTR.
The girls aren't getting stolen away by the monsters. They're just sluts.

For it to be NTR, first, there has to be romance between the girls and the protagonist which... lol. Look at the MC's design. Second, the girls need to go to the cuck's side and emotionally destroy the protagonist.

In Subverse the girls sleep around, but one of the people they sleep around with is the protagonist. They aren't getting stolen away, and the MC can't get emotionally destroyed by anything cause he's braindead.

Maybe constantly calling it NTR was the community's problem? What you want are exclusive heroines. Girls that only sleep with the MC.

For me a key failure of the design comes back to the silliness of the devs talking about injecting romance into it while having the females basically running around being little whores. It's like why the mixed messaging as you so succinctly noted...they talk about setting up 'dating' / 'romance' situations like in the bar but that contradicts the design of the female characters - again, trying to please everyone and having design conflicts left and right as a result.

Ya, I don't get too hung up on the technical definitions of NTR in any game really. I'm not one of those people that screams NTR because another male has a conversation with my waifu, but ya what you hit on there at the end about exclusivity does come into play for me, just not in a harem capacity necessarily, or at the outset. I had expected that the girls would eventually have the possibility of exclusivity, but the problem for me with Lily is the non optional nature of the beastiality. You can choose not to watch it, but they still talk about it so it's still in-your-face during the game. So it's not so much that she has another partner / partners early on, it's that it's with monsters, lol. As to your question about her character, I had simply expected that the monster part would have been optional, not necessarily the slutty backstory. It's the nature of the fringe content that, based on some of the conversations had on the Steam boards from mods, I had expected would be optional. Clearly not, though, based on the earlier screenshots I posted,

The fact that Lily fucks monsters is a core part of her character. You literally can't take it out and still keep her as Lily. You can choose to not fuck Lily though... but I mean... it's an adult game and most of the female crew aren't exactly heroine material. Not like the MC is designed to deserve one anyway.
It was someone else, but I remember that because I was in that conversation.
Personally, I don't think it's possible to have an option system.

Well technically not on choosing to fuck Lily - you're kinda shoe-horned in to the "recruitment" scene, but it's funny you mention that because another poster a few pages back actually had some interesting suggestions about how additional options to kick some waifus off the ship (I suspect pulled from other games, maybe?) if you wouldn't tolerate their shenanigans could have given additional freedom to the player.

The poster we're talking about was trying to find ways to integrate the sexual content in the game naturally while also giving due to people's tastes. "If you interact with Killi romantically she won't get fucked by Mantics, therefore the adult scenes can actually happen naturally over the course of the game based on player behavior" was basically the core of that post.

Problem is, this reduces the scene count people would experience playing the game, and even the maledom, gangbang rapefiend guys would have to act a certain way to get those mantic scenarios which isn't fair to them either. What if they want to act romantic and nice to Killi but still want to see the mantic scenes?

Perfect solution in my opinion would be if they just weren't cowards and stuck to their sexual tastes, including the sexual elements in interesting and unique ways based on their sexual tastes, and drawing a firm line in their community for people who like certain things.

Femdom creators do this all the time.

I liked that poster's suggestion due to the shaping nature of it by the player - like a number of games I've seen with a dialogue / choice tree you would simply not be able to get everything in one playthrough and could have multiple playthroughs if desired to unlock everything. Plus I consider that to add some realism in that sometimes you do have to make choices in a given narrative. I also liked the natural development of the suggestion as well since I do agree with the large number of people who want to see more story-integrated scenes versus just random GIFs that are mid-scene and last seemingly a handful of seconds that don't have a proper situational lead-in, lead-out to develop the story between the characters. I suppose we're just spitballing at this point, but ya, definitely would have preferred to see them give the player more freedom with regard to the beast stuff in terms of excluding it from the story if desired. That's pretty much my core hangup with the game / waifu design through the current build.

 

[Archonde]

Man, i love all these super complex explanations that you guys do in this thread, it's quite entertaining.

But, like i said a feeeeew pages away, if Studio Fow has put, i don't know, 25-30? more scenes in the Pandora system in the first version, half of this thread would not exist.

On the subject of the NTR/cuckold with the mantics, i feel that it is more of a ''open relationship'' than cheating. I mean, if we go with that logic, the MC has cheated every one of the girls. They are only sex partners right now.
The only one getting cucked is the Space Pirate and the alien dude we saved from a spacial station. Poor dude it's literally touching himself inside of a locker.

 

[TheUnsaid]

females basically running around being little whores.

I don't know why, but calling them sluts is fine with me, but calling them whores seems extreme XD
The only whore (prostitute) on the team hasn't joined yet.

I see the word slut as shorthand for sexually promiscuous. Girls even call each other that in a joking manner so it doesn't have that strong negative sting for me like whore does.

But, like i said a feeeeew pages away, if Studio Fow has put, i don't know, 25-30? more scenes in the Pandora system in the first version, half of this thread would not exist.

I wonder if it's just the amount. I've played games with only 10 scenes in total that don't get the type of discussion Subverse has gotten when it comes to lack of eroticism.

On the subject of the NTR/cuckold with the mantics, i feel that it is more of a ''open relationship'' than cheating.

Yeah that's the word. That's what I was trying to say earlier. It's technically not NTR, and it's also technically not cheating. The people with issues are miscommunicating. It's not that they don't want NTR or cheating. It's that they want the girls to be exclusive.

I do agree with the large number of people who want to see more story-integrated scenes versus just random GIFs that are mid-scene and last seemingly a handful of seconds that don't have a proper situational lead-in, lead-out to develop the story between the characters.

I've flip-flopped on this actually.

While I think having it be forced would make the game more erotic directly, I'm not sure if it's necessary to do so if the scenes just have more weight to them.

For instance, only a few scenes in Evenicle happen naturally while you play the game. The SEQUEL games also only have 1 or 2 scenes that happen naturally as you play the game. The scenes themselves have context within themselves and happen in a Sequence though. So Scene1 happens after Scene2 so there's still emotional progression in the dialogue in the scenes. Like maybe Scene1 the girl is new to sex so it hurts for her, and by Scene2 she's more resilient to pain, and by Scene3 she's erotic enough to shake her own hips.

Maybe it's just because they're gifs with no narrative that's making the scenes have no weight?

Either way though, I do prefer more direct erotic integration in the gameplay. Me personally, if I play an adult game I don't want to be able to avoid the adult content even if I try, but it's better to think about this on a game-by-game basis when it comes to what each game needs from the creator's vision.

 

[Gwedelino]

Next version of the game is coming soon since we are in October now.

Can't wait for it be released so I can have a little more diversity in my dramas

 

[Thrway8113]

I don't know why, but calling them sluts if fine with me, but calling them whores seems extreme XD
The only whore (prostitute) on the team hasn't joined yet.

I see the word slut as shorthand for sexually promiscuous. Girls even call each other that in a joking manner so it doesn't have that strong negative sting for me like whore does.

hah, I guess I look at them about the same.

I've flip-flopped on this actually.

While I think having it be forced would make the game more erotic directly, I'm not sure if it's necessary to do so if the scenes just have more weight to them.

For instance, only a few scenes in Evenicle happen naturally while you play the game. The SEQUEL games also only have 1 or 2 scenes that happen naturally as you play the game. The scenes themselves have context within themselves and happen in a Sequence though. So Scene1 happens after Scene2 so there's still emotional progression in the dialogue in the scenes. Like maybe Scene1 the girl is new to sex so it hurts for her, and by Scene2 she's more resilient to pain, and by Scene3 she's erotic enough to shake her own hips.

Maybe it's just because they're gifs with no narrative that's making the scenes have no weight?

Either way though, I do prefer more direct erotic integration in the gameplay. Me personally, if I play an adult game I don't want to be able to avoid the adult content even if I try, but it's better to think about this on a game-by-game basis when it comes to what each game needs from the creator's vision.

When you say more weight, do you just mean you want them to be longer, more detailed?

I think the GIFs are just bad because a.) they're really short (we're talking like anywhere from 10-30 seconds) and b.) they don't have proper situational lead-ins and lead-outs with narrative context. So it's not a real scene - it's like taking a porn movie and going about 8-10 minutes into the action and then recording for 20 seconds and putting it on repeat and then calling it a scene. It's not really a scene because it completely lacks context and proper flow. And I'm not saying it has to be 20-30 minutes long - I understand they don't have the manpower / budget to do that, but even taking Pandora as it is where they have the little intro parts where maybe the girl is on the bed seductively moving around, and then you have your warmup where maybe the girl is giving the captain a blowjob, then move into the main scene, etc. - what they need to have there are transition animations that flow between the intro, the blowjob, then the sex, and the end / cuddling / girl leaving the room in the morning, etc. because as it is now it feels very disjointed and not at all erotic, at least to me. If they had the girl seductively moving on the bed, and then just showed a 5-10 second animation that shows the girl moving to the captain, dropping a pillow on the floor in front of him and kneeling to get into the starting position for the blowjob to then transition to the blowjob portion and again as it moves between the different sections of clips, I think that would add a lot as the scene would actually flow like it should and not look disjointed and weird as it skips to different portions of the action.

And as far as the detailed narrative interaction - let's use Killi just as an example to talk about - so captain completes her recruitment mission, they head back to the ship and they're just automatically in the middle of sex. There's no foreplay, there's no flirty dialogue leading into things during the scene, there's no heading to the bedroom, getting undressed, etc. there's just too many details skipped in the process of how things would happen.

There just needs to be more detail to the scenes before / during / after and that would really help a lot, especially with the narrative integration of scenes. They said they were taking that particular complaint into consideration after the initial release, so I'll be curious to see if they made any changes with it in this upcoming update.

 

[Deleted member 324588]

hah, I guess I look at them about the same.

And as far as the detailed narrative interaction - let's use Killi just as an example to talk about - so captain completes her recruitment mission, they head back to the ship and they're just automatically in the middle of sex. There's no foreplay, there's no flirty dialogue leading into things during the scene, there's no heading to the bedroom, getting undressed, etc. there's just too many details skipped in the process of how things would happen.

You can really only do this for certain scenes at best. The lengthiest thing you'll be looking forward to are the devotion scenes at the end of that quest line.

But you can't do these large buildups for every girl for the majority, or even half of the scenes in Pandora, cuz then when they do truly matter (i.e after we've gotten to learn more about the ladies and develop a deeper relationship with them) it'll just be another long scene amidst a bunch of long scenes.

The looped scenes make the premiums stand out, and the premiums in turn will help the devotion scenes stand out.

 

[Deleted member 324588]

And for those wondering about the DD, from discord:

 

[Emperor_Arcturus]

Next version of the game is coming soon since we are in October now.

Can't wait for it be released so I can have a little more diversity in my dramas

Make sure you bring the popcorn

 

[Thrway8113]

You can really only do this for certain scenes at best. The lengthiest thing you'll be looking forward to are the devotion scenes at the end of that quest line.

But you can't do these large buildups for every girl for the majority, or even half of the scenes in Pandora, cuz then when they do truly matter (i.e after we've gotten to learn more about the ladies and develop a deeper relationship with them) it'll just be another long scene amidst a bunch of long scenes.

The looped scenes make the premiums stand out, and the premiums in turn will help the devotion scenes stand out.

I definitely don't expect it for every scene, but a lot of the scenes they should be able to add the items I mentioned (you didn't quote it above) in my other post about transition animations so that when people build a scene in Pandora it transitions smoothly from one bit to the next. I will admit my expectations are low, however.

 

[Deleted member 324588]

I definitely don't expect it for every scene, but a lot of the scenes they should be able to add the items I mentioned (you didn't quote it above) in my other post about transition animations so that when people build a scene in Pandora it transitions smoothly from one bit to the next. I will admit my expectations are low, however.

The best I think you could hope for at this point is an autoplayer so the user doesn't have to advance the scenes themselves. But I can't see them doing a scene then breaking it up into pieces just to fit it into the system. Cuz if it was meant to be one whole scene, then what's the point?

 

[Thrway8113]

The best I think you could hope for at this point is an autoplayer so the user doesn't have to advance the scenes themselves. But I can't see them doing a scene then breaking it up into pieces just to fit it into the system. Cuz if it was meant to be one whole scene, then what's the point?

The point would be to allow the player to actually build a scene which is the point of Pandora, and not just string a bunch of 10-30 second GIFs together that hop all over the place.

 

[Deleted member 324588]

The point would be to allow the player to actually build a scene which is the point of Pandora, and not just string a bunch of 10-30 second GIFs together that hop all over the place.

Except once there's enough scenes added to the game you could likely do that. you could have one centered around mantics, or tentacles. Or for the vanilla folk, you can start with a tease, then a handjob, a bj, one sex position/a premium sex position, and then a finisher/after scene.

Even with the current small amount present you could do that now with DEMI's tease, handjob, recruitment scene, and then either of her After shots.

 

[Deleted member 324588]

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[Thrway8113]

Except once there's enough scenes added to the game you could likely do that. you could have one centered around mantics, or tentacles. Or for the vanilla folk, you can start with a tease, then a handjob, a bj, one sex position/a premium sex position, and then a finisher/after scene.

Even with the current small amount present you could do that now with DEMI's tease, handjob, recruitment scene, and then either of her After shots.

No, even with the GIFs that are meant to be paired together, they don't have proper flow in the current build. You just hop from one ~20 second GIF to the next where the characters are just warped into different positions - there's no proper transition between the GIFs so it doesn't generate an actual scene that flows properly - hence the "transition animations" I mentioned that would help eliminate the disjointed nature inherent to Pandora as it's currently designed.

 

[Gwedelino]

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My face when I see that most of the new sex scenes added still doesn't include any context.

 

[Cpt.SumTingWong]

With all these teasers I hope that the update comes out on monday

 

[TheUnsaid]

No, even with the GIFs that are meant to be paired together, they don't have proper flow in the current build. You just hop from one ~20 second GIF to the next where the characters are just warped into different positions - there's no proper transition between the GIFs so it doesn't generate an actual scene that flows properly - hence the "transition animations" I mentioned that would help eliminate the disjointed nature inherent to Pandora as it's currently designed.

Most games don't do that, and that's a lot of work to just get this nebulous sense of connection.

Honestly? Most games I know about just transition from the VN ADV section to the fullscreen scene CG. What's more important is dialogue during the scene, and the scenes having multiple CG to show the girl laying there > getting fucked > creampie.

I think focusing too heavily on the presentation on a visual level ignores other things they can do to get that same level of immersion and emotional involvement.

Honest question but have you played other adult games? There are interesting solutions to this problem that have been tackled before.

 

[Nalsuloth]

~SNIP

But... because they are aware that people don't like everything they made it so adult content is unlocked based on your tastes so all of it is canon while none of it is. The story can't change because of adult elements that happen, and adult elements can't naturally happen over the course of the story.

~SNIP

Funny you should say that considering, that in the Devblogs they been posting. It says they heard people being disappointed with how everything Sexual is in Pandora only. And are planning to integrate that stuff more into the story.

 

[Thrway8113]

Most games don't do that, and that's a lot of work to just get this nebulous sense of connection.

Honestly? Most games I know about just transition from the VN ADV section to the fullscreen scene CG. What's more important is dialogue during the scene, and the scenes having multiple CG to show the girl laying there > getting fucked > creampie.

True enough, although most games don't have a $2M kickstarter to get things going.

I think focusing too heavily on the presentation on a visual level ignores other things they can do to get that same level of immersion and emotional involvement.

Honest question but have you played other adult games? There are interesting solutions to this problem that have been tackled before.

Yep, I've played more than a few adult games, mostly from this site and a few others that I found on Steam that I bought there. Most of the ones are from this site, which are probably the better games I've played. And they are usually made by Indie devs working alone via Patreon support, which makes their accomplishments more impressive to me. Whereas Studio FOW is an established studio, not saying they are huge by any means, but they have been making movies and learning animation development for upwards of 10 years or so IIRC, and are pretty darn good and experienced at animation, so my expectations for a project from an established studio with a $2M headstart are going to be higher than they are from Indie developers.

What were your thoughts on other ways they could / should tackle the emotional involvement? I'm always open to hearing suggestions and other considerations as I've certainly not played every game out there.

 

[Deleted member 324588]

True enough, although most games don't have a $2M kickstarter to get things going.



Yep, I've played more than a few adult games, mostly from this site and a few others that I found on Steam that I bought there. Most of the ones are from this site, which are probably the better games I've played. And they are usually made by Indie devs working alone via Patreon support, which makes their accomplishments more impressive to me. Whereas Studio FOW is an established studio, not saying they are huge by any means, but they have been making movies and learning animation development for upwards of 10 years or so IIRC, and are pretty darn good and experienced at animation, so my expectations for a project from an established studio with a $2M headstart are going to be higher than they are from Indie developers.

What were your thoughts on other ways they could / should tackle the emotional involvement? I'm always open to hearing suggestions and other considerations as I've certainly not played every game out there.

Ya really can't hold the budget up as the end all answer though. A cut goes to KS, another to Epic for the engine use, then there's the matter of there being an entire team to pay for 2 years and going, as well as bringing on more in recent months. So its not as simple as looking at the amount of 0's and saying 'why thing not how I want it to look', you have be more realistic.

Regarding the other bit about the emotional involvement, have ya heard any of the devotion dialogue thus far? Cuz there's already personal emotions being shown by the characters in them.