VN Ren'Py Sucker Punch (AI) (Story Driven) [Development Thread]

1nsomniac22

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Game Developer
Jul 16, 2025
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Greetings F95zoners. As a recent emigree from itch.io (prior to the Adult Content apocalypse), this thread will be the Devlog for my new project: Sucker Punch. I am very pleased (and as always, a little nervous) to release a new effort to the world at large. I invite you to take a look and see if this story interests you.


TL;DR, new game, Ren'Py, AI art. First chapter will be ready soon.

Sucker Punch is the Adult Visual Novel I have wanted to create for a while. Where my first work (Workin' Out) was a Kinetic Novel with no user interaction, this is my best effort to write a compelling narrative where the players choices dictate how the story progresses and relationships develop (or don't).

Fighting to tell a story
screenshot01.png

This project started with the concept of having an action component to the story - the fight mini-game. It's (admittedly) a very simple game mechanic, but I hope it adds something to the user experience more than just clicking through dialogues, selecting menu items and looking at pictures (not that there's anything wrong with that). I wanted to create an experience that involves the player and generates tension, hopefully the first fight mechanic provides that. Remember, fights aren't always a win or die scenario, you don't have to win every fight to progress through the story (only Critical Fights). There are some dialogues/choices that only happen when fights are lost.

World building
world.png

Sucker Punch is set in a gritty current day world. You live in the slums of a nameless city working a dead end job. You're poor and desperate to get out of the current situation. The story starts on the eve of your final amateur fight; win this fight and go professional. But something terrible happens and you find yourself scrambling to pick up the pieces.

The characters you meet in this world are also struggling to survive. I am trying to develop characters with their own stories, motivations, and narratives. This means that each character you meet is usually broken in some way - some more obviously than other. But, like the fight system, I'm trying to create a storyline with multiple routes that aren't just- yes: have sex/ no: skip the sex scene or do you have enough love points to see this scene? I admit, this is difficult- the technical challenge is manageable in Ren'Py (I work professionally with Python, so I've got a good enough understanding of how to code this), but developing these storylines so they offer distinct branches, but still return to the main story arc seamlessly is challenging - in a good way.

This Adult Visual Novel is told through images generated by Stable Diffusion (not everyone's cup o' tea). I've put a lot of effort in developing a style that isn't the default Pony (or other basemodel of your choice). I've found those basemodels generate images that are too smooth (for lack of a better term) or conversely, hyper-realistic images which can be stunning, but I think that dip too far into Uncanny Valley. This is an artistic/stylistic choice, I'm interested in seeing how far I can go using local AI generated imagery. I'm aware there are critics of AI generated content... I'm one of them. I am not a fan of the churned out basemodel slop that's flooding every forum and medium. There are a lot of guilty parties publishing stuff that I feel gives the (AI gen art) technology a bad wrap. However, AI generated art is a new medium that I'm more interested in working in than Blender, Poser, or Daz.

The cast in the Prologue and Round 1 you will interact with in Sucker Punch

Ashleigh is a nurse who cares for the player after the fight.
ashleigh01.png
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Rikton is the owner of the Dollhouse club.
rikton01.png
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Lilly is a naive girl who works in the club.
lilly01.png
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Elizabeth is an exotic dancer in the club.
elizabeth01.png
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If you've read this far - thank you! I am completing the final editing of Round 1 and will be publishing it shortly. Obviously this VN is intended for adults only. It includes scenes of:
  • Smoking
  • Alcohol use/Alcoholism
  • Illegal drug use
  • Sexual situations including coerced sex, prostitution, BDSM, male and female dominance
  • Emotional and physical trauma, mental illness, depression and suicide
They are not always optional, view at your own risk and in compliance with your local laws. You have been informed.

Questions/Answers:
  1. Are the fighting mini games skippable? Yes, in the game Options menu you will be able to suspend/resume them at any time.
  2. Is there a harem route? No. You can pursue multiple LI's, but they're not going to be one happy octo-thruple.
  3. Are there gay scenes? Not planned, the MC is heterosexual male. In the femdom route there will be exploration of anal play, pegging and other similar topics, but no siffication - that doesn't really fit the MC character.
  4. Are there lesbian scenes? I do have a story route planned that involves a lesbian relationship. It will be optional to pursue that route.
  5. Will there be scenes of LI's with other men? Yes, but not as a voluntary relationship. Think more coerced sex and exploitation.
  6. Will there be NTR content? No, not by the common definition. See answer 4 for more context.
 
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Winterfire

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Sep 27, 2018
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Will you clean your art? Almost all of the faces are broken, and they all seem to be using a different style... Especially the backgrounds, in comparison to the characters. I'd focus on a single style for consistency.
 
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duckydoodoo

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Nov 9, 2023
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im more concerned with are mini games skippable, is there free roam or sandbox?

as for the dark elements, its all in the story telling. for the most part ill try any type of game content and see how its done then decide if its for me. but i tend to avoid sandbox, i dont care much for free roam but can stomach some, and i loathe mini games and if i cant skip them i skip the game. 9/10 times i cant complete the mini game. im disabled and my reaction time is shit. had to give up playing video games years ago because of it.
 

1nsomniac22

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Game Developer
Jul 16, 2025
20
28
Will you clean your art? Almost all of the faces are broken, and they all seem to be using a different style... Especially the backgrounds, in comparison to the characters. I'd focus on a single style for consistency.
The backgrounds and characters use different base models due to the limitation of the Pony model and it's extremely annoying lack of understanding of non-sexual non-character tokens. Using different models for the characters and backgrounds is something I've done for my other project as well.

Could you give a bit more information about you are seeing that is broken in the faces? I'd like to know if there is a flaw in the LoRA's I've trained.

im more concerned with are mini games skippable, is there free roam or sandbox?
Sorry, I haven't planned to implement free roaming/sandbox due to my own limitations of writing. I'm afraid it would be too difficult to keep the storylines advancing with a truly open experience. Early in the development cycle I was considering having a more open story using the day/action points model, but abandoned that avenue of development.

I'm sorry to say the minigames are not skippable as I've implemented them; I'm afraid this VN would be quite frustrating for you in it's current form. I will look into how difficult it would be to add an option to prevent the minigame/substituting a fight won/lost selection menu. Technically it should be easy, but I don't think I would have it in place before my planned ship date.

Thank you for the suggestion, I don't want to put up unnecessary barriers to the VN and I hadn't considered that some players wouldn't actually be able to complete the minigame.
 
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Winterfire

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Sep 27, 2018
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The backgrounds and characters use different base models due to the limitation of the Pony model and it's extremely annoying lack of understanding of non-sexual non-character tokens. Using different models for the characters and backgrounds is something I've done for my other project as well.

Could you give a bit more information about you are seeing that is broken in the faces? I'd like to know if there is a flaw in the LoRA's I've trained.
Screenshot 2025-09-02 155312.png Screenshot 2025-09-02 155333.png Screenshot 2025-09-02 155420.png Screenshot 2025-09-02 155429.png Screenshot 2025-09-02 155446.png
 

Maviarab

Doing Mafia Helmet Things....
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Jul 12, 2020
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Certainly sounds interesting...mini-games..uugghh..why do people keep investing time coding this shit when they could spend more time actually devloping their story, more writing and rendering...bnut no...gotta code in these games. It's a VN...not a 'game'....at least your dropped the sandbox idea...something at least heh.

Depending on how it's actually implemented I could grim and bare it, if the story is compelling enough. Look forward to seeing where/how it goes.

Good luck Dev!

(Might want to also addres in this threead what the usual questions will be...possible harem?...lesbianism? (skippable)...see LI's in compromising situations with other men (NTR)...blah blah blah...you know what's coming when it releases heh).
 

1nsomniac22

Newbie
Game Developer
Jul 16, 2025
20
28
im more concerned with are mini games skippable, is there free roam or sandbox?
I took a second look at the code and think I have a solution for skipping the fight minigames. There will be a selection in the Options menu: Skip Fight Games. If true instead of the minigame you'll be presented a Win/Lose menu. I'm doing more testing and need to add some final formatting, but this feature will make the release date.

Again, thanks for the suggestion!
 

1nsomniac22

Newbie
Game Developer
Jul 16, 2025
20
28
(Might want to also addres in this threead what the usual questions will be...possible harem?...lesbianism? (skippable)...see LI's in compromising situations with other men (NTR)...blah blah blah...you know what's coming when it releases heh).
Thanks for the heads up, will update OP with those usual questions.
 
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