Ren'Py Superheroes Suck [v1.976 Public] [Solace]

[moskyx]

Today's message from Dev's Discord, about the 1.0 thing:

Hey everyone, I hope the Holidays aren't murdering you or giving you murderous thoughts towards family and friends.

I just wanted to address a question I've been getting a lot, and I'll post this again on the weekly Progress Report:

Superheroes Suck is not ending on Version 1.00. We're going to be only halfway through the main story content, and not even a third of the way through the total planned content of the game. There's a lot more to come.

 

[Havik79]

Not sure how this story will go, but the discovery of superpowers really has to be just Act 1, so hopefully this is how the version numbers go and we get to a 3.0 or 4.0.

Yeah except the post above kills that, halfway through the story and no fucking clue what his superpowers are, fuck Hawkeye or even lame-ass Aquaman are even better than we are.
I am not even convinced we are even a superhero at all.

 

[moskyx]

Yeah except the post above kills that, halfway through the story and no fucking clue what his superpowers are, fuck Hawkeye or even lame-ass Aquaman are even better than we are.
I am not even convinced we are even a superhero at all.

I agree the pace regarding MC's superpowers are a bit slow, but actually in this last update there's a significant event on the matter

 

[Havik79]

I agree the pace regarding MC's superpowers are a bit slow, but actually in this last update there's a significant event on the matter

OK, I assume you are talking about what happens before Val dick teases you, in which case, you and I have a massive difference in the meaning significant.

 

[moskyx]

OK, I assume you are talking about what happens before Val dick teases you, in which case, you and I have a massive difference in the meaning significant.

We don't have any more answers but we do know there's something else. After several updates of nothing at all, that's significant in my book, yeah.

 

[Sennistrasz]

Yeah except the post above kills that, halfway through the story and no fucking clue what his superpowers are, fuck Hawkeye or even lame-ass Aquaman are even better than we are.
I am not even convinced we are even a superhero at all.

That's what I mean that when we do find out, in a typical story structure that should be closing Act 1. Even if it's lame, it should be some closure, then Act 2 would be about using whatever we have or on a larger scale, superheroes doing superhero things, no more school stuff. To not have the conclusion of a major plot point before the mid-point of the whole story is just weird, as would staying as a student that far into the story. The other characters already have showed initiative that they're not going to be students forever, so I don't see MC doing the same.

 

[Havik79]

Unless it is going to be like some of those games like A Petal among thorns, where you fuck Petal in the final, so you stay and fuck all the girls, and then find your superpower in the final update.

 

[cxx]

Well that was 2 updates in one for me, didn't play the last one, and both were disappointing.

Val dick teasing, no Riley for 2 updates, and the still same thing go here study with a girl, go here study, go here maybe something sexual, and we still have NO clue at all as to anything about any so-called powers.

Everyone's story is moving forward while ours has stagnated.

if you are after sex then you can do those replay sexscenes with girls.

 

[Havik79]

if you are after sex then you can do those replay sexscenes with girls.

I said the MC story, not MC fucking.

 

[cxx]

I said the MC story, not MC fucking.

well it's quite tied to girls stories so it advances that way. blame solace.

 

[rahkshi01]

I hope that we can eventually add Sumire and that newsreporter for Harper to the harem. I mean you can't tease me like that in Chrys' room and expect me to not want more, plus I think Chrys would be ok with it.

 

[Havik79]

I don't care, just give me the ginger copper with the double whoppers.

 

[Knight of Solace]

Goodness, it's been a while.

Sorry everyone on F95zone for being out of contact. I've been running myself a little ragged for the past... uh... since summer. I've also gathered a quite competent set of bug testers on the Patreon Discord, and they've been taking up most of my attention as I play whack-a-mole with the various issues in Superheroes Suck. Moskyx is also kind enough to relay the bugs this community finds to me directly as well.

I don't mean to be neglectful of your enthusiasm for the game, I'm just spread a little thin.

Having gone through the past several dozen pages of comments, I'll address some of the questions regarding the game, paraphrasing them for context, but before that...

Superheroes Suck will not be ending in Version 1.00

Much like the comment quoted above, we are only approaching the halfway point of the main story and barely a third of all planned content for the game. There are many, many more updates still to come. I'll segue to addressing the obvious follow-up of, "why are you calling it a version 1.00, then?" This is because this was going to be the original ending for the game. When I started Superheroes Suck, I didn't know what to expect, and so I set my sights fairly low, a simple, straightforward harem story with four heroines and that would be it. I would expand upon that list and the story if I received enough Patreon support to offset my investment in computer parts and Daz3D assets. I do purchase the assets. I surpassed that goal some time ago, and as such the story of Superheroes Suck is going to be much longer - I suspect topping out at around 30 hours once its finished. I didn't want to restart the numbering because I felt that would just add to the confusion.

Why is the beginning so good but what comes immediately afterward suck so bad?

Ow. Well, to put it simply, that's because I redid the beginning. Once I was much more experienced with Renpy, Daz3D, rendering, and my audience, I went back and I touched up the beginning of the story to have better pacing and more consistent (read: less jarring) visuals. This is why the quality curve looks like the letter "U" for roughly the first hour of the game. That dip is my first couple months of working on Superheroes Suck before I had a set process and knew what kind of quality I was aiming for.

I would have liked to fix more of it, but I couldn't help but notice the army of pitchforks owned by people who were unhappy with the lack of "new" content. Redone content, even if done better, is not "new."

Why not delay the game until you could put out a consistent quality?

I understand the frustration here, but there is no good way to practice without actually doing something like this. There aren't any courses I can take on erotic visual novel development with Daz3D assets. I looked up several tutorials, and did my best to study how coding works, rendering, and Renpy in general for roughly three months before starting. All of my improvements since then have been due to feedback from my players and engine updates to Daz3D. If I never went public with Superheroes Suck when I did, I likely would never have improved the visuals or animations.

When will we learn more about the protagonist's powers?

Version 1.20 is the scheduled reveal, but I have a feeling that the real question is...

Why make a Superhero game if the character you play doesn't do any cool Superheroes things? Also, how is this the midpoint of the story if we don't even know what our powers do?

Once again, I understand the frustration here, and I know that I have added to the frustration by ensuring only a breadcrumb trail linked the reader to the protagonist's actual abilities. The protagonist themselves is also, in the story, frustrated by the lack of personal development in this category, to the point he's willing to do risky, even dangerous things. I'll do my best to explain.

I did not want the protagonist's relationship with any of the heroines to be impacted by his powers. I didn't want them to find him interesting because of his powers, or feel repulsed by them in the same vein. I wanted those abilities to form absolutely zero percent of the foundation of his relationships with the main cast, because I wanted to emphasize how important the protagonist is to them without his abilities. Many characters, Chrys most recently, comment on how little they care about whatever his superpower is, because what he means to them is much more important. Even if he's, "just a guy." Not overly dashing, or charming, or witty, or successful. Just a dude who once worked as a cashier.

If we're talking strictly in terms of the protagonist's powers, then yes, we are much closer to the first act of the story than the midpoint, but the end of the actual first act of Superheroes Suck had nothing to do with his powers. You completed the first act of the story when each of the four heroines realized they cared about you.

I've read a comment here about how the sex in Superheroes Suck feels more like a "fuck buddy" relationship instead of a romantic encounter. That's true. That's the point. They have sex because they're attracted to each other, have the opportunity, and the desire. In the beginning, all of the heroines have superficial reasons for wanting to spend time with the protagonist. It's only as your relationship with them progresses that those feelings change, their idle poses change, their resting facial expressions change, the way they speak to you changes, and even their default outfit changes. This is why the more "romantic" encounters are later on in the game as opposed to the first couple of scenes, which is the opposite of many traditional eroges.

The relationship between the protagonist and the heroines has always been the focus of Superheroes Suck.

Having said all that, I know that the protagonist's powers mean a lot to you all, and are a cornerstone of this type of genre, and so we're coming up to why I feel spread a little thin.

For most of this year, I have been doggedly pursuing the main story of the game. My earliest fans will recount how content updates used to be a lot more even between Chrys, Harper, Riley, and Valentina. Nowadays, things are grossly skewered to one side or the other. The (in)famous, "Month of Chrys" Version update held 9 Chrys events and zero events for everyone else. Why? Because I needed the last Chrys event in Version 0.975 to progress the main story, so that I could prepare the Valentina events that just took place, and that was the fastest way to set up its foundation. In pursuit of Version 1.20, I have set aside all other priorities in Superheroes Suck: everything from adding new sandbox activities to end the "time skip button meta," to fixing old events to meet the new standard, to alterations to the textbox, and even game mechanics like the affection and obedience systems. I just don't have the time, or brain space, to storyboard this far into the future and also go wide with quality of life fixes.

I don't want to take shortcuts or rush the story of Superheroes Suck, so the best that I can do is put the power reveal as my number one priority and build toward that one Version at a time. After that point, I would like to take a few updates to address the lack of sandbox features, of which there are almost none, and then build out to fix many of the other problems that have gathered over time.

Anyway, I'm rambling now. Thank you for your patience. This is definitely a work in progress.

 

[cxx]

i wonder how mc is gonna have sex with fembot artemisia.

 

[CurtimusPrime92]

i wonder how mc is gonna have sex with fembot artemisia.

my bet is in her quest for her upgrades to her shell she'll end up with fully anatomically correct using silicon or something for flesh like skin

 

[Bucketbot89]

We going Mass Effect 3?

 

[cxx]

We going Mass Effect 3?

mass effect xxx

 

[HogRocket]

Goodness, it's been a while.

Sorry everyone on F95zone for being out of contact. I've been running myself a little ragged for the past... uh... since summer. I've also gathered a quite competent set of bug testers on the Patreon Discord, and they've been taking up most of my attention as I play whack-a-mole with the various issues in Superheroes Suck. Moskyx is also kind enough to relay the bugs this community finds to me directly as well.

I don't mean to be neglectful of your enthusiasm for the game, I'm just spread a little thin.

Having gone through the past several dozen pages of comments, I'll address some of the questions regarding the game, paraphrasing them for context, but before that...

Superheroes Suck will not be ending in Version 1.00

Much like the comment quoted above, we are only approaching the halfway point of the main story and barely a third of all planned content for the game. There are many, many more updates still to come. I'll segue to addressing the obvious follow-up of, "why are you calling it a version 1.00, then?" This is because this was going to be the original ending for the game. When I started Superheroes Suck, I didn't know what to expect, and so I set my sights fairly low, a simple, straightforward harem story with four heroines and that would be it. I would expand upon that list and the story if I received enough Patreon support to offset my investment in computer parts and Daz3D assets. I do purchase the assets. I surpassed that goal some time ago, and as such the story of Superheroes Suck is going to be much longer - I suspect topping out at around 30 hours once its finished. I didn't want to restart the numbering because I felt that would just add to the confusion.

Why is the beginning so good but what comes immediately afterward suck so bad?

Ow. Well, to put it simply, that's because I redid the beginning. Once I was much more experienced with Renpy, Daz3D, rendering, and my audience, I went back and I touched up the beginning of the story to have better pacing and more consistent (read: less jarring) visuals. This is why the quality curve looks like the letter "U" for roughly the first hour of the game. That dip is my first couple months of working on Superheroes Suck before I had a set process and knew what kind of quality I was aiming for.

I would have liked to fix more of it, but I couldn't help but notice the army of pitchforks owned by people who were unhappy with the lack of "new" content. Redone content, even if done better, is not "new."

Why not delay the game until you could put out a consistent quality?

I understand the frustration here, but there is no good way to practice without actually doing something like this. There aren't any courses I can take on erotic visual novel development with Daz3D assets. I looked up several tutorials, and did my best to study how coding works, rendering, and Renpy in general for roughly three months before starting. All of my improvements since then have been due to feedback from my players and engine updates to Daz3D. If I never went public with Superheroes Suck when I did, I likely would never have improved the visuals or animations.

When will we learn more about the protagonist's powers?

Version 1.20 is the scheduled reveal, but I have a feeling that the real question is...

Why make a Superhero game if the character you play doesn't do any cool Superheroes things? Also, how is this the midpoint of the story if we don't even know what our powers do?

Once again, I understand the frustration here, and I know that I have added to the frustration by ensuring only a breadcrumb trail linked the reader to the protagonist's actual abilities. The protagonist themselves is also, in the story, frustrated by the lack of personal development in this category, to the point he's willing to do risky, even dangerous things. I'll do my best to explain.

I did not want the protagonist's relationship with any of the heroines to be impacted by his powers. I didn't want them to find him interesting because of his powers, or feel repulsed by them in the same vein. I wanted those abilities to form absolutely zero percent of the foundation of his relationships with the main cast, because I wanted to emphasize how important the protagonist is to them without his abilities. Many characters, Chrys most recently, comment on how little they care about whatever his superpower is, because what he means to them is much more important. Even if he's, "just a guy." Not overly dashing, or charming, or witty, or successful. Just a dude who once worked as a cashier.

If we're talking strictly in terms of the protagonist's powers, then yes, we are much closer to the first act of the story than the midpoint, but the end of the actual first act of Superheroes Suck had nothing to do with his powers. You completed the first act of the story when each of the four heroines realized they cared about you.

I've read a comment here about how the sex in Superheroes Suck feels more like a "fuck buddy" relationship instead of a romantic encounter. That's true. That's the point. They have sex because they're attracted to each other, have the opportunity, and the desire. In the beginning, all of the heroines have superficial reasons for wanting to spend time with the protagonist. It's only as your relationship with them progresses that those feelings change, their idle poses change, their resting facial expressions change, the way they speak to you changes, and even their default outfit changes. This is why the more "romantic" encounters are later on in the game as opposed to the first couple of scenes, which is the opposite of many traditional eroges.

The relationship between the protagonist and the heroines has always been the focus of Superheroes Suck.

Having said all that, I know that the protagonist's powers mean a lot to you all, and are a cornerstone of this type of genre, and so we're coming up to why I feel spread a little thin.

For most of this year, I have been doggedly pursuing the main story of the game. My earliest fans will recount how content updates used to be a lot more even between Chrys, Harper, Riley, and Valentina. Nowadays, things are grossly skewered to one side or the other. The (in)famous, "Month of Chrys" Version update held 9 Chrys events and zero events for everyone else. Why? Because I needed the last Chrys event in Version 0.975 to progress the main story, so that I could prepare the Valentina events that just took place, and that was the fastest way to set up its foundation. In pursuit of Version 1.20, I have set aside all other priorities in Superheroes Suck: everything from adding new sandbox activities to end the "time skip button meta," to fixing old events to meet the new standard, to alterations to the textbox, and even game mechanics like the affection and obedience systems. I just don't have the time, or brain space, to storyboard this far into the future and also go wide with quality of life fixes.

I don't want to take shortcuts or rush the story of Superheroes Suck, so the best that I can do is put the power reveal as my number one priority and build toward that one Version at a time. After that point, I would like to take a few updates to address the lack of sandbox features, of which there are almost none, and then build out to fix many of the other problems that have gathered over time.

Anyway, I'm rambling now. Thank you for your patience. This is definitely a work in progress.

Meh, It's all good. I can't speak for everyone else but I'm basically happy, that's all that really matters afterall - keeping ME happy.......so you're doing OK.

 

[Pr0man]

I'm genuinely curious how the whole Artemisia plotline is going to play out in future updates. There's no way in hell Shiro doesn't know about what the MC did in there... I'd even go so far as to say he may have given the MC a free pass in doing so.

Spoiler: reasoning for that assumption

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[cxx]

I'm genuinely curious how the whole Artemisia plotline is going to play out in future updates. There's no way in hell Shiro doesn't know about what the MC did in there... I'd even go so far as to say he may have given the MC a free pass in doing so.

possibly.