VN Ren'Py The Adventurous Couple [TACOS Part 9a] [Mircom3D]

[shizzlenizzle]

c:\users\username\AppData\Roaming\RenPy probably. That's usually where all the renpy saves go. I don't know if it has a different name than the game there. I think the folder you're looking for is called 'TheCuckold' with a number following it.

Edited: Deleting savegame files from the game/saves folder does not delete all of them. The backup files are still in the appdata/roaming folder. You have to delete both.

 

[Segnbora]

While bemoaning a desperately disappointing update to a game for which I had certain hopes, I turned my thoughts back to this one. This may all be too late, but I finally figured out how I'd "fix" this game. The theory is to do the vast majority of the work with dialogue changes and a whole new set of variables, preserve all the existing content, and limit artwork changes to the barest minimum. My ideas about the variables almost certainly require some tweaking, but I think they get the basic ideas across.

This is long, so even though it only includes spoilers for those who have adamantly refused to play the game I'm hiding what follows inside tags.

Spoiler: Here be loquacious dragons

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[numanumani]

While bemoaning a desperatly disappointing update to a game for which I had certain hopes, I turned my thoughts back to this one. This may all be too late, but I finally figured out how I'd "fix" this game. The theory is to do the vast majority of the work with dialogue changes and a whole new set of variables, preserve all the existing content, and limit artwork changes to the barest minimum. My ideas about the variables almost certainly require some tweaking, but I think they get the basic ideas across.

This is long, so even though it only includes spoilers for those who have adamantly refused to play the game I'm hiding what follows inside tags.

Spoiler: Here be loquacious dragons

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That's some write up, nice!

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[goobdoob]

While bemoaning a desperatly disappointing update to a game for which I had certain hopes, I turned my thoughts back to this one. This may all be too late, but I finally figured out how I'd "fix" this game. The theory is to do the vast majority of the work with dialogue changes and a whole new set of variables, preserve all the existing content, and limit artwork changes to the barest minimum. My ideas about the variables almost certainly require some tweaking, but I think they get the basic ideas across.

This is long, so even though it only includes spoilers for those who have adamantly refused to play the game I'm hiding what follows inside tags.

Spoiler: Here be loquacious dragons

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Suggestion - when talking about booleans, don't use 1 and 0. Use True and False. It's good programming practice, and makes it clear that the variable is a boolean, not an integer with a value of 0 or 1.

 

[joker8]

Here are a few thoughts:

1. I think the MC and Anne should be able to set rules for their relationship under the right conditions. For example, if the MC and Anne agree to only do things together (MC participates or just watches) or only after telling the other one first and the MC sticks to that plan, then so should Anne. If they really love each other and have trust, then this will work and can lead to lots of hot scenes as they get deeper into exploring together.
2. Give the MC the ability to be more assertive in situations involving anne. You do a great job of letting the mc romance and be assertive with the other side female characters and they LOVE him because he is a great lover and the right mix of assertive/sweet. Let the MC tell anne about his conquests and take video/pictures/let her secretly watch without the other side chick knowing anne is watching. This should make him more attractive in anne's eyes and not let her see him as someone she can walk all over. Also, the MC has to have the right to call anne out/outright stop the situations where she tries to fuck him over in front of his face. Martin is the best example, there is no way in hell, unless you are on a pathetic, voyeur only cuck route, that the MC would ever just let his father fuck anne in his own house. Give us the option to go full alpha male on martin by knocking him the fuck out and then fucking anne in the shower while martin is out cold. Also, under the scenario where anne and ryan fuck after you told ryan not to, or if they lie to you about it after you watched them......you have to let the MC confront them at breakfast after overhearing their conversation or walk in on them if anne leaves in the middle of the night to fuck him. The MC has to be able to kick ryan out permanently and confont anne. A great alternative would also be for the MC to go and tell ryan's wife what happened and be able to fuck her and send ryan and anne video/pictures of the deed under the caption "this is what happens when you lie," or something like that. Don't make the MC be so passive and just take everything anne does.
3. Don't let everyone of anne's conquests have a massive dick or be some great lover. She should have negative experiences in the form of 1. a guy being a quick shot 2. a guy not being able to get it up (like and old guy such as the dr. or phil) 3. she should be treated harshly/rough trying to fuck guys like troy and she should not like the experience. All of these things happening would serve to make anne appreciate what she has in the MC and bring them closer.
4. Give anne standards. The thing I hate the most is that she literally is/will fuck anyone by chapter 10. fat, old, ugly....anytime and any place. Give her some self respect, or at least give the MC the option to become distant from her and outwardly focus on the other women like nicole, chloe....etc without respect for anne if she whores herself out.
5. For the endings, I hope there will be a happy path where the MC and Anne realize that they are enough for each other and decide to go monogamous. A happy path where the MC and Anne are happy together and have only occasional swinging/threesomes. A happy path where they have a trusting, completely open relationship but stay together and happy. A path where the MC leaves anne, who has become a complete slut, and the MC finds happiness by either falling in love with one of the side girls/becomes a player that fucks tons of the side girls regularly while anne ends up regetting losing the MC. A path where anne leaves the MC after the MC cheats/breaks her trust too many times.....she ends up happy with dre or as a single girl fucking whoever all the time, while the MC regrets losing her and is miserable. An ending where they break up and both are miserable and miss what they had.....leading to a sequel game where you have to win anne back.

 

[conho]

All the opnions and tips over are great but i don't think that is possible for the developer to make everybody happy. Probably he has the complete plan for this game in mind at least. I agree with joker8 too, Ann fucking everybody is already borring! And i repeat something that I told before. The little details about scenes and life, does this game a greater work!

 

[Segnbora]

As noted earlier, a great deal of thinking went into the idea that Mircom3D likely isn't going to pursue a revamp that requires tons of new renders, especially retroactive ones. So I discarded some ideas that I actually think would make an even better game because he'd have to go back and insert visuals that don't exist at the moment. For example: the idea of Anne's boss' wife is briefly dangled and then forever dropped. Were one to go back and actually insert scenes, a swinging path could mean the possibility of a foursome. But, again, I seriously doubt that's going to happen, so I'm mostly leaving suggestions like that out of what follows.

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[numanumani]

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[numanumani]

Even better would be a random event generator where the chance of either is greatly reduced by annecheat = 1, if that's possible in the engine.

This is technically doable but my suggestion would be to avoid it. Since this is game with a linear storyline lasting a finite number of weeks it would end up making players reload until they got their desired random outcome.

I find that random events work better in sandbox games where it's easier to allow for multiple chances/opportunities to trigger said event, dissuading the player from immediately reloading just because a specific event didn't trigger, since they know they will get another chance the following day.

Having said that, I typically dislike sandbox games due to the way they promote resource and event grinding. The amount of content required to keep such a game feel fresh and interesting in a reasonably long play through is simply too great for most devs.

 

[Cicero72]

I finished the update and enjoyed it. I agree that the choices could be cleaned up. My suggestion would be to keep it simple unless Mircom3D now has a team behind him. Also, I would prefer that routes would not defeat the overall plot. Some have mentioned a somewhat harmonious route, but this might derail the "be careful what you wish for" and "I'm a serial cheater" themes that hopefully will resolve one way or another.

I looks like Anne cheating might be a plot requirement. I am fine with that as it generates tension in the story. However, I think the mentality behind Anne's cheating needs better development. Right now, Anne just doesn't want to tell. But why? Anne can use it against the MC by telling him about the affair and then withholding details until she gets what she wants. Also, it is not clear if Anne has developed stronger feelings for these characters.

I like when the MC and Anne get together with characters who could serve as rivals of their significant other. This sets up that choices will have to be made and deals struck. For the MC, I think Mia, Zarah, Holly, and Chloe are good examples from their sexual encounters. For Anne I find it more difficult. Dre, Malcolm, maybe Mike, Ryan, and the secret boss. I think Anne might need to have multiple encounters with certain characters whom she favors.

Generally, I like a dominant MC who has to negotiate the life he created.

 

[Segnbora]

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I guess I should also stress that if Mircom3D doesn't want to go to all this extra work I'm trying to pile on him without his consent, he could also strip away all the route baggage and just go ahead and finish off what is already essentially a cheating/cuckold/cautionary tale VN that shows very few signs of ending well, much less with Anne and the MC still together. It would reduce the "gameplay" to figuring out how to get certain scenes and would diminish the potential quality, for sure, but it would still be a perfectly reasonable way to go and I think most people would still like the game. Add a "you know what, honey, I don't want to do this anymore" (justify it because Anne's pregnant, they panic when they don't have any idea who the father is, and then their relief at finding out it's the MC's) ending to head off potential complaints that there's no "happy ending," and call it a day.

I'm not saying that's my preferred outcome, but I'm not giving Mircom3D enough money to do what I tell him to, either.

 

[PTM666]

He could already have a plan of what he's gonna do

 

[Cicero72]

Speaking of pregnancy, a potential short sequel could be a mystery. Who is the father? MC and Anne recount their adventures pre-pregnancy in an effort to solve the mystery. Reader choices affect the outcome.

 

[Retromancer]

While bemoaning a desperately disappointing update to a game for which I had certain hopes, I turned my thoughts back to this one. This may all be too late, but I finally figured out how I'd "fix" this game. The theory is to do the vast majority of the work with dialogue changes and a whole new set of variables, preserve all the existing content, and limit artwork changes to the barest minimum. My ideas about the variables almost certainly require some tweaking, but I think they get the basic ideas across.

This is long, so even though it only includes spoilers for those who have adamantly refused to play the game I'm hiding what follows inside tags.

Spoiler: Here be loquacious dragons

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

So this post is a blueprint for how I hope a rework of the game will go through - it does some vital things:

1) Organize the game into clear paths, which leads to
2) Give the game some clear choices, which leads to
3) Make it more of a actual game rather than some weird VN which seemingly changes every time you play it and leads to
4) Making players happier, and also more supportive, which considering all the energy around this topic might help the creator out financially and, also, giving them (both creator and players) extra motivation.

I also appreciate the hard work of doing some "conceptual coding", if you will, and also the thoughtfulness of taking into consideration the extra renders or writing that might be needed. Seriously, this is gold standard work.

While I don't agree with every point, or even every definition (but I'm not going to sit and argue what I think hotwife, cuckold, NTR etc. mean because it's a fool's game and who cares what I think), the roadmap here is very valuable as a blueprint even if Mircom wants to take it down very different roads. I liked this post - I wish I could like it 10 times, not because I agree with it exactly but if something like this is done the game's a fucking masterpiece. But that's hard, and I also understand if a shorter, easier path is taken.

 

[Segnbora]

Thank you very much, Retromancer. That's extremely kind of you to say.

I'm not going to sit and argue what I think hotwife, cuckold, NTR etc. mean

It's worth pointing out that a lot of my uses of those terms are usually meant to delineate distinct paths, not necessary to identify specific events in the game as such.

That said, these would be the definitions I'm using in these posts (and again, strictly for the purposes of bringing order to this potentially world-class game, not in an attempt to define them generally):

hotwife = the MC enjoys Anne having sex with other people, and so does she; all his emotions are positive
open relationship = ^ they also have rules covering those times when they aren't together but still want to get freaky
swinging = they have sex with others and can both choose to join in (or not)
cheating = they have sex with others and hide/lie about it
cuckold = Anne cheats on him and he knows about it, but is fine with it (or is fine with knowing he doesn't have a choice)
NTR = they cheat (either direction), know about it, aren't 100% fine with it all of the time, and experience feelings about it

 

[Retromancer]

Yes. These seem to be more instinctive definitions than was originally in the OP and if gameplay follows that, then the player will be allowed to use their gut as well as their head to play the game, if that makes any sense. It could be done in subtle dialogue/render changes as you have pointed out, too.

 

[Segnbora]

That's really crucial for me: if reworking the game requires redoing the art, it will never happen. Yeah, I'd like the two (three?) cranial-epilepsy animations to be redone, and there are plenty of other renders that I think could be improved, but what I mostly want is to see the game move forward into coherent excellence. I certainly don't want the dev to be completely restaging and re-rendering old scenes. Let's find a way to make the game work — make it make sense — with what we've already got. I'm adamant that it can be 99% done through variables and dialogue.

And yes, I'd like to be able to "feel" my way through the choices. They rarely make sense at the moment.

I certainly don't need Microm3D to buy into my specific vision, either. But I think, as you say, it's a sort of guideline to how to fix the mess and make this game brilliant, even legendary, rather than just very good.

Maybe (not a conviction, just an idle notion that may very well be wrong) do what Paperwork did with Project Sage: go back to the beginning and reboot the game, rather than a super-long delay before the next update. That way everyone knows what you're doing and why you're doing it. It still requires testing right through to the current content to see if the variables work, but I think people would be a lot more forgiving of "TAC: Rebooted" than they would of an epic delay to reconfigure the game.

 

[Cicero72]

My suggestion would be to keep the VN story focused with plot elements that define a successful story. The re-work would serve this. Routes would intertwine and separate as needed serving one or multiple plots. I would hope they would come together in a climax and conclusion. The power of the VN allows for variations in choices and endings to appease a wide audience.

My concern with VNs is a great start and build-up, but lack of follow-through. At some point readers will tire of getting more of the same content without direction where things are heading. A major conflict must be addressed. None of this is easy. I salute writers who put considerable time into story development.

I would avoid making the VN too gamey. Choices and variables should make sense but not always be entirely obvious, and having an army of them can make this difficult.

I liked many of the suggestions in this chat and enjoyed reading them. I would avoid hard "game over" scenarios though. There are more creative approaches to looping back when particular choices would dead end the plot.

 

[Retromancer]

I think that classifying this game as a VN as it stands tight now is a little too simple. It is like a game and VN smashed together, to the detriment of both. If a VN is what Mircom wants it to be, that's fine, then get rid of this false "choice" in Chap 6 and trim and prune some (or a lot of) routes, and we're done. Don't give a false illusion of it being an actual game. If this is an actual game, then put some extra work into it along the lines of what was suggested by segnbora.

 

[joker8]

I have a few questions about anne's activities. My question is does anne have sex with the following characters regardless of what path you take or what is actually shown on the screen based on the "choices" you make in the game.
1. Does she have sex behind the MC's back with Martin even if you denied him spying on anne in the shower, anne did not like him spanking her on the beach, and did not agree to get naked with him on the beach....basically you did not choose cheating porn or let him go in the shower?
2. Does anne always have sex with drake on the beach and/or at the spa no matter what you do? I know she will tell you about it if you choose the cuck path with the swingers, but what about if you do not?
3. Does anne cheat with phil and donnie during the photo session no matter what you do? I know it is only shown after watching cheating porn, but does this event happen no matter what you choose?
4. Does the event in the spa with troy and drake happen no matter what you choose?
5. Does anne have sex with mike at the nude beach while you are talking with mike's wife? I know anne says in multiple paths that she didn't.