VN Ren'Py The Dark Knight [harem] - Development Thread

[Ambir]

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This game was leaked and is now available for free. You can get it here: game thread

Greetings! My name is Ambir, and The Dark Knight (TDK) is my second game. I am a rather experienced programmer and writer and have made it my personal objective to make a top tier visual novel for your viewing pleasure. I am committed to bring you excellence and have the greatest hope to please you with my story, visuals and lewds.

I'm back after quite a large hiatus from development. I finally have all the pieces I need to build the game, all that is needed now is to assemble them, and possibly lots of coffee. Please note that right now, with what I have, I can only build a limited version of what I originally planned on doing (the cuts I made are what make it possible to even make the game), and it will only cover the first chapter. It is my hope that it will be enjoyable nontheless and that you will want to see more once I finally publish the game.

Story:

Spoiler

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Characters:

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Genre:

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Gameplay:

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You can reach me through the following means:
Discord:

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Patreon:

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Twitter:

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Deviantart:

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[Deleted member 1427961]

Sounds interesting, and I like the art style. I'll keep a look out for it.

 

[Ambir]

Sounds interesting, and I like the art style. I'll keep a look out for it.

I am glad you find this interesting
I'll be updating this thread weekly as I get more things to show. (Although the demo is coming rather soon, so I might also wait a bit as not to spoil it too much so it remains enjoyable).

 

[Ambir]

Greetings!

So, here's some updates about how the development is going.

First up, I have some sneak peaks for the game art.

This is Mist, the second girl that will be featured in the game.
Mist concept art:

Spoiler

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Here's one of the backgrounds of the game.
Cabin Night background:

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In addition, I spent a non-trivial amount of time recruiting artists this week, so the making of the art should pick up steam, which means I might be able to post updates here faster (No promises).

Going to add these to the main post. Hope you enjoyed and I'll update when I have more to show!

 

[Ambir]

Hope you had a nice week.

Here's this week's sneak peak dump.


Let me know if you prefer this kind of update or the previous one.

In any case, I hope you enjoy these. Demo will most likely be out by next week same date.
See you then.

 

[x~Minchen~x]

Hand holding without yuri? What's the point in that? It does look good and I like evil protagonists though.

 

[dmmt]

release date of 2nd week in Sep? Which year? Next week is the 1st week of Dec and...no release as yet.

 

[Publius Clodius Pulcher]

Good luck with your project, that blonde hime-sama MC looks nice!

The blue haired one looks a little bit unremarkable, tho. Could benefit from a more appealing shade of blue, a different eye colour or shade of colour and possibly a more elaborated hairstyle.

 

[Ambir]

release date of 2nd week in Sep? Which year? Next week is the 1st week of Dec and...no release as yet.

Yes, there were some issues that complicated things. Also, I'm not very proud to say that I kinda forgot to update this thread...

I've released the first day of the game on itch.io some times ago. Here is the link:

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I have not advertised it on this forum as it is not free for the time being. I know people will rag on me and tell me that I should give it away for free because that's how porn games in development work, however I decided against it for reasons that are my own.

I intend to make a free version of the game that's a demo for people to try it out, however I do not have enough content beyond what would be a demo to justify it right now.

As for the issues in the development, well I don't know if you're aware of what's going on in the world, but maybe you'll have heard of a thing called covid-19. When I made this thread, my country had eased the lockdowns, and I stopped updating the thread about when the lockdowns started again. Honestly, it's been really really rough on me, and I have had most of my team leave the project for mental health reasons. I am well at the time of writing this post, however it has taken some serious efforts on my part to get back on my feets, and the development of this project has suffered from it.

Right now I am working on day 2 and I have some people helping me. As I said to my patrons, I intend to keep working on this game no matter what happens. I cannot give any guarantees as to how things are going to go, when the next release will happen, or when I'll have a free demo for people to try.

All I can say is that I will do my best to deliver on my promises. There are promises I cannot keep, namely the time-based ones, as reality went a very different way than I'd hoped. However I had planned for over an hour of content per chapter, and about five chapters for the entire game, and that is the goal I am working towards (the way it's going, this is most likely going to increase, but I have to start somewhere).

I'm not the kind of person who like to sugarcoat things, so sorry if this is a bit blunt. I understand if this upsets people, and, by all mean, if you don't like it, you're free to take actions against this project. It's not going to stop me.

I hope this explains enough of what went down, and if you have other questions, feel free to post them here.

Regards,
Ambir.

 

[zeraligator]

Looks like this project didn't have the best start, but I hope this becomes a full game one day as the concept is nice.

 

[Ambir]

Looks like this project didn't have the best start, but I hope this becomes a full game one day as the concept is nice.

Thank you. I am persevering on it. Can't say when the next update will be out but it's actually being worked on every day.

 

[Slaanesh Champion]

Hope you're get fine soon and wouldn't abandon this game.

 

[Ambir]

Hope you're get fine soon and wouldn't abandon this game.

Actively working on it, although right now I'm trying to figure out a way to make it so that it's possible to keep developing without having to keep pumping art assets. The current project was fatally flawed in the way that I couldn't really reuse the art assets to keep making the game. It took too many backgrounds and other kind of art assets.

I know it may seem sad that I will maybe reduce asset diversity, but the issue if I don't do that is that it might cost thousands of bucks in assets for so much as ten minutes of gameplay, and that just isn't viable at all.

Now, obviously, there are ways to stretch the story with fewer assets, but I feel like going in the way where I constrain some parts of the story in some defined locations as well as maybe reduce the graphic qualities for some of the less important scenes/recycle assets for those parts of the story like generic travel might be a good idea.

I am also consulting with someone who does game design to maybe get support on adding a RPG side to the game. With someone dedicated to making the gameplay fun, I could enhance the game experience.

I've given some thoughts of switching my engine to RPG Maker for that purpose, at least as a temporary way of cutting down on assets cost and adding a bit more gameplay. I know it's not a popular engine because it creates "trash games", however I feel like it has some potential that can be exploited with some actual code and not full reliance on the "easier" ways to use it.

Anyways... TLDR: Just wanted to let you know where I'm at and why progress slowed down. Hit a roadblock where future progress is in peril due to the project costing too much, so I'm looking into changing the way I develop it so it is doable without having to rely on my patrons too heavily.

 

[Slaanesh Champion]

Actively working on it, although right now I'm trying to figure out a way to make it so that it's possible to keep developing without having to keep pumping art assets. The current project was fatally flawed in the way that I couldn't really reuse the art assets to keep making the game. It took too many backgrounds and other kind of art assets.

I know it may seem sad that I will maybe reduce asset diversity, but the issue if I don't do that is that it might cost thousands of bucks in assets for so much as ten minutes of gameplay, and that just isn't viable at all.

Now, obviously, there are ways to stretch the story with fewer assets, but I feel like going in the way where I constrain some parts of the story in some defined locations as well as maybe reduce the graphic qualities for some of the less important scenes/recycle assets for those parts of the story like generic travel might be a good idea.

I am also consulting with someone who does game design to maybe get support on adding a RPG side to the game. With someone dedicated to making the gameplay fun, I could enhance the game experience.

I've given some thoughts of switching my engine to RPG Maker for that purpose, at least as a temporary way of cutting down on assets cost and adding a bit more gameplay. I know it's not a popular engine because it creates "trash games", however I feel like it has some potential that can be exploited with some actual code and not full reliance on the "easier" ways to use it.

Anyways... TLDR: Just wanted to let you know where I'm at and why progress slowed down. Hit a roadblock where future progress is in peril due to the project costing too much, so I'm looking into changing the way I develop it so it is doable without having to rely on my patrons too heavily.

It's fine, do what needs to be done, use whatever engine you think will suit better for the game, reuse backgrounds as much as you want, just don't give up.

Sidenote: The more complex, the branchier the plot, the more variables are introduced - the longer and harder it is to properly implement all of that. Finding the golden middle will noticeably help and reduce required efforts.

 

[Ambir]

Thank you very much for your encouragement.
And yeah, I did notice that branchy plots make games bigger. Tbh, I'm almost considering just using the RPG part to allow exploration and throwing out a lot of the other choices to make things simpler. I want to give player agency, I just also want to deliver a game you know x_x

Nothing is decided tho, I will be making important decisions in the coming days, so I'll keep you posted.

 

[Slaanesh Champion]

Thank you very much for your encouragement.
And yeah, I did notice that branchy plots make games bigger. Tbh, I'm almost considering just using the RPG part to allow exploration and throwing out a lot of the other choices to make things simpler. I want to give player agency, I just also want to deliver a game you know x_x

Nothing is decided tho, I will be making important decisions in the coming days, so I'll keep you posted.

The common method developers usually execute is to make two vastly different branches. Good<->Bad, Pure<->Corrupt, etc.
It may be overused and ordinary, but it works. Players feel that they directly influence the story and developers doesn't overexert themselves.
If you have enough time or funds, you may even make minor alterations inside said branches that can lead to alternative endings.

 

[Ambir]

Alright, well it looks like I'm back. I will resume working on this project pretty much full time. Edited main post to showcase the changes to the game that I have planned.

I am going to take your advice and do vastly different branches... And only do one of them for the time being.
The other branches/choices will be made later if there is interest for the game.

So yeah, hopefully this works out.

I estimate that it will take me about one month to finish the first chapter, at least in terms of writing. As for when I can publish it, I would rather not step on that landmine just yet, so I can't commit to any release date.

 

[Ambir]

So, I finally remembered that I had a twitter account. Not a big fan of that website, but I wanted to give more regular updates and so I decided to make daily update tweets. If anyone is interested in seeing what's going on, you can follow me there or just peek from time to time.

Fair warning, I foresee a lot of writing in my near future, so the updates might contain some trace amount of insanity as I slowly fuse with my keyboard.

 

[Ambir]

Yeah, so lots happened since my last post.
Not sure what to do with this thread since the game was leaked...

Let me know if you still want me to post tidbits about development progress here or if twitter + the game thread is sufficient.

 

[zeraligator]

Yeah, so lots happened since my last post.
Not sure what to do with this thread since the game was leaked...

Let me know if you still want me to post tidbits about development progress here or if twitter + the game thread is sufficient.

I think it would probably be better to stick to twitter and the game thread, updating three places(especially with two on the same site) will just get confusing.