c3p0

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Nov 20, 2017
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It's a great VN, I'm not here to complain about that, but the fact that it's not tagged VN here seems like it will draw people looking for gameplay and disappoint them, while also getting missed by some folks looking for a VN and not realizing this really is one.
There is a solution here. Report the game and write that it should have the VN tag. Tags aren't assigned by devs, perhaps by the ones that are thread owner, but not by devs that don't own the thread. Uploaders don't play each game and update to see whicht tag are needed and which tags are incorrect.
Thus tagging depens a lot of people reporting which tags a game should have.
 
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operamini

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Sep 2, 2019
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It can still be rogue members devoted to Mina.

She's clearly and totally pissed out. It wouldn't be too surprising that she decided to pass her anger on the DeLuca, and by then finally starts the war she want. It make sense since she's convinced that they are weak, and that the Ombra is the strongest family. Getting rid of the DeLuca would be the best way to assert her family position, while proving Nazazi that she isn't weak and an useless incompetent idiot. After all, we saw her threatening to kill the heir of the Silverino family, something that by itself could have had big consequences.
It would also fit the story. An opened war right now don't seem to make real sense, there's still too many unknowns regarding MC, and the background don't feel totally set yet. Still, an opened war is the only possible consequence after what happened. Until now the DeLuca were measured in their retaliation, but only because the offense were low. Here it's radically different. The core family have been directly targeted, in its territory and its main house, and on top of that one of its members have been hit...
This is a war declaration, and a no limits war. The Pacificatoris wouldn't be able to prevent this. They hit the third child of Dona DeLuca, it's not some random deaths that can avenge this. Cordia had the head of a heir for less than that. And of course, the alliances would play, in no time all the families would be involved.

But, if it's rogue members of the Ombra family following Mina's orders, it can be solved without war. Nazazi want to get rid of the untrustworthy members... Offering their heads (possibly even Mina's one) to the DeLuca would achieve this, while in the same time preventing the war.
The Don just killed one of his own in front of his "soldiers" and family, for taking Mina's side, and sent his daughter to deliver the course as a apology to the Deluca family, then removed Mina's leading powers, i would highly doubt anyone would have the balls to not only support Mina but get into an all out war right after that, specially when the daughter would be there as well (as she was going to Deluca's Estate).

To this we need to add the problem of firepower, its not like Deluca's are a small family, that kill shot would require the enemies to invade the perimeter first, and they don't have much firepower, much less if its just one portion of the Ombra family.

Imo we saw all this from the Ombra family to explain why they would be arriving soon to the Deluca Estate, and why they would help.
 

anne O'nymous

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We will see where this leads us. What we think is, that Luna won't stop until she found the one who shoot at her sister and want to have her revenge/justice done with her own hands.
Not sure she will, or even that someone would let her do it, before she see Gracie walking again. I can be wrong, but right now she seem to be back in the early days after her release.
The Luna you talk about, and that we all love, would have jumped through the window and already started the hunt. But the one we saw was young Luna. Look at her saying that all those she care for are destined to die, and the way she's totally deaf to MC saying that Gracie is not dead. I'm almost sure that she saw Sofia's body over Gracie's one.


If they are rogue members of the Ombra family, perhaps Nazazi and Shioban will work together with the Delucas to uncover the plot.
We don't know how many times have passed since the attack against the warehouse, but it seem clear that it's in between that she changed her mind and decided to stay in the family. Her encounter with Nazario is the main reason, but look at her when she talk about MC.
She's clearly intrigued and interested by the dynamic she witnessed ; a soldato who nearly ordered capos, and capos who didn't cared to follow a soldato's lead... It's far from the tyrannic organization that seem to have been the rule in the Ombra family under Mina's lead. Plus, this soldato really cared about Fina, a girl he know nothing about, what is far from the cold heart Mina have.
It's not impossible that this encounter was what decided her to stay and use what she learned from Nazario in order to awake her father and take the lead. She saw that there's more than one way to be a Family, and that a way matching her principles is possible.

Anyway there's a constant so far.
MC shared his youth with Jalen. They influenced each other, share a strong bound and more or less the same vision of the world.
Shioban had a pleasant interaction with MC, and seem to have thought a lot about him since this. She have nothing more than curiosity for him so far, but she was at the warehouse to be sure that the prisoner where treated with care.
After wanting to kill him by contract, Eiza was ready to face, and probably fight if needed, Luna to prove that her place is at MC's side.
While the Carnefice aren't anymore, it's three heirs that interacted with MC and weren't at all indifferent to this/those interaction(s).

So far, after obviously Cordia and Wilfred, MC is the DeLuca (among the most seen ones) that have the more links with other families, and the best relations. Antonio is too much led by his aggressiveness, Luna too lunatically crazy, and Gracie still too soft. But MC, everyone he interact with seem to like him for a reason or another. Even Wilfred, behind his many schemes, seem to have a soft spot for him, and not just because of who he is.
He's someone who let no one indifferent, even those he fight with. And so far he defeated two promising recrues, while in the same time earning their respect.
It remind me why Cordia created the Serpents, and what they fought for. She wanted a change, and had to become a Dona for it to not be ephemeral. As far as the story goes for now, MC is achieving the same without the need to kill someone, what could make the change be stronger.

So, don't worry, I'm sure that we will she Siobhan more, and perhaps even more of Siobhan



Edit: Really too obvious typo.
 
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cccxxx

Active Member
Aug 8, 2018
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man this was short , how long was it? an hour reading vs a year wait ?
should have been a couple of month for this volume
hope he doesn't do a reboot again
there are far to many characters and story elements for his current output
 

AL.d

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Sep 26, 2016
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I've downloaded games from here that aren't that dialogue heavy, and I've seen games with the visual novel tag, I skip those. Not all the games here are visual novels. I've seen descriptions of games here that tell you if they are novels are not as well. There's a balance of games here.
Anything made with RenPy is a visual novel by default. It's a visual novel engine. Some of those visual novels have interactive choices which means they are also games. Others don't have that, so they are kinetic novels (not really games) and usually tagged as such. The amount of reading one likes or dislikes doing, is completely irrelevant to something being a game or not.
 

lavilao

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Nov 8, 2020
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All translation are done by volunteers.
If the French translation no longer works, it means the volunteers either stopped working on it, or they haven't updated the translation yet.
Dunno which it is, though.


Which confrontation do you mean?

My canon playthrough is Netori route (didn't choose friendship route), but even so, the only difference that I'm seeing in the gallery is that Netori route has the event "A Soldier's Sacrifice" playing.
So I'm guessing you're referring to "Fly White Bird, Fly" event?

I would have thought for Friendship route, it would play out slightly differently (but I wouldn't know, since I didn't pursue that path).
the event where isabel tells you she saw you and gracie. The name is triaquaedam, in the dialog mc says "Im dead because of grinding with the familys daughter but not for bj with the don's wife?" or something like that and thats a ntr interaction which I did not do.
 

JJJ84

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Dec 24, 2018
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But after that first third it seems the gameplay part just gets abandoned in favor of the VN stuff. And it seems the recent updates focus more on the no-gameplay mode and VN content. It's a great VN, I'm not here to complain about that, but the fact that it's not tagged VN here seems like it will draw people looking for gameplay and disappoint them, while also getting missed by some folks looking for a VN and not realizing this really is one.
That's not really true.

It's just the way things are with rotation of content.
Before the Wilfred's Contracts gameplay was introduced with v0.07, game always used to to release content in the following format:

Main story/Main Event → Girls lewd/Freeroam → Main story/Main Event ''

(sometimes thing may be mixed up where it's 1 main event + 1 girls lewd etc depending on circumstances, but regardless, it all goes around, content dependent on the rotation).

With Contracts coming into gameplay (and into rotation), it's obvious there will be times where it would be lacking in gameplay because the focus would be more on VN.
However, even with VN parts, the contracts gameplay mechanic had been interspersed;

Outside the D-contracts, Ombra mission had at least one gameplay part.
Not to mention Gracie's events in v0.08 which had at least 2 or 3 gameplay using the same mechanic.


Also, I think some people might be under the misconception that just because it has "sandbox" tag that it's a full blown sandbox game.
While for some that may be true, that's not always the case.

Sandbox tag gets applied whenever Sandbox gameplay elements are in the game.
Whether it's in 80% of the game, or 50% of the game or 20% of the game. Doesn't matter.
As long as it's there, it's treated as such (with DeLuca, I see it more as moderate-sandbox, with the Wilfred's contracts gameplay system).

In the end, it all is dependent on how much sandbox the dev wants to insert in (but the tag rules still applies the sandbox tag).
 

JJJ84

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Dec 24, 2018
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the event where isabel tells you she saw you and gracie. The name is triaquaedam, in the dialog mc says "Im dead because of grinding with the familys daughter but not for bj with the don's wife?" or something like that and thats a ntr interaction which I did not do.
Huh, I thought the Triaquaedam event wouldn't trigger if the player chose Friendship route.
Guess it's not the case.

But I chose the Netori path, so I wouldn't know.
 

lavilao

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Nov 8, 2020
84
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It happened to me too HopesGaming
This isn't the easiest game to parse through but if i get this right, there is no "Friend route" in the code at all, the only thing that changes that scene is if you flirt or not, which is a real shame.
Hope its released in said part 2.
I just avoided the event and continued the story, I too hope in the next update the event has the friendship route.
 
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Cartageno

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Dec 1, 2019
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I did have a similar frustration.
This is explicitly NOT tagged as a Visual Novel above - which makes sense, as the first third or so of the game tries to be a real game. There's a stat array you manipulate with gear you purchase with money, there's a grid-based map for scenarios where you explore looking for clues and secrets, trying to beat challenges with skill checks.

But after that first third it seems the gameplay part just gets abandoned in favor of the VN stuff. And it seems the recent updates focus more on the no-gameplay mode and VN content. It's a great VN, I'm not here to complain about that, but the fact that it's not tagged VN here seems like it will draw people looking for gameplay and disappoint them, while also getting missed by some folks looking for a VN and not realizing this really is one.
Apart from what others have said: if this were to be tagged as a Visual Novel there would be complaints by others since it isn't a pure VN - it contains all the stuff mentioned, inventory, time management, collecting cash, and so forth. Thus is has the tag "sandbox" - which is there for precisely this kind of game. And sandboxes (on this site) almost always include VN like story elements between the roaming around and getting stuff. And even without the "VN" tag and with the "Sandbox" tag, there have been complaints in this thread en masse about too much gameplay and not enough story.

After all, those tags are only rough estimates of what to await. Everything, be it a kink or a gameplay style, is on a scale. How much reading, how much grinding, how much MILF, how much whatever. And where on the scale you want to be warned/informed will differ depending on who "you" is. There will be no "one size fits all". But I personally would be very astonished if this got the VN tag because it is way below the median in being a VN and that tag - correctly or incorrectly - does not appear that often.
 

Damien Stark

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Jan 26, 2018
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Apart from what others have said: if this were to be tagged as a Visual Novel there would be complaints by others since it isn't a pure VN - it contains all the stuff mentioned, inventory, time management, collecting cash, and so forth. Thus is has the tag "sandbox" - which is there for precisely this kind of game. And sandboxes (on this site) almost always include VN like story elements between the roaming around and getting stuff. And even without the "VN" tag and with the "Sandbox" tag, there have been complaints in this thread en masse about too much gameplay and not enough story.

After all, those tags are only rough estimates of what to await. Everything, be it a kink or a gameplay style, is on a scale. How much reading, how much grinding, how much MILF, how much whatever. And where on the scale you want to be warned/informed will differ depending on who "you" is. There will be no "one size fits all". But I personally would be very astonished if this got the VN tag because it is way below the median in being a VN and that tag - correctly or incorrectly - does not appear that often.
Agreed, I don't think tagging this game with VN is the right solution, for the reasons you mentioned. Although it does have a dedicated "VN mode" straight from the menu when you start the game, which should address the problem for folks coming in for a VN and not wanting any gameplay.

It's just frustrating that the gameplay drops off so sharply mid-way through, and predictable that this will not be the priority with new releases, as everyone will be understandably clamoring for more story and pron.
 

JJJ84

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Dec 24, 2018
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It's just frustrating that the gameplay drops off so sharply mid-way through, and predictable that this will not be the priority with new releases, as everyone will be understandably clamoring for more story and pron.
That's the thing though.
DeLuca was never meant to be a gameplay-first game (even though it has some gameplay aspects with Full Experience mode).

It was always meant to be story-comes-first game even before the contracts were revamped in v0.07 (it's just the way the dev set up and planned the game since the beginning. So everyone clamoring for more story doesn't really have anything to do with it), though now I guess they're in the mix with rotation.

Perhaps in your case, it's the misplaced expectations (and I don't mean any offense by this, of course)?
 
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anne O'nymous

I'm not grumpy, I'm just coded that way.
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Note: I don't say that I'm right, or that you are wrong, but you forgot some points in your reasoning.


The Don just killed one of his own in front of his "soldiers" and family, for taking Mina's side,
Something that only half a dozen soldato and two/three capos, plus the daughters and Mina, know about. Nazazi said it, "the circumstances of Brizio's death cannot leave this room". A handful members of the Family know why Nazazi killed him, all the others don't even know that it's Nazazi who killed him.


and sent his daughter to deliver the course as a apology to the Deluca family,
For the contract, what is different ; as Siobhan could say, it's a question of principles, but I guess that for Nazazi it's more a question of rules.

If you have something against a top member, and even more a core member, you solve the issue by yourself, you don't use a proxy. The Ombra should have terminated the contract the instant they discovered that the target was living in the main house. Imagine the consequences if it was otherwise...
Assassins are tolerated because they are more useful than they are a threat, what is possible only because there's people that are said to be out of reach. Your child can go to school, without you fearing that he'll be stabbed or poisoned, because of those limits. The core members can have a life because of those limits. There's risks of course, but you know that there isn't an assassins after you. if someone want to kill you, it will be fair play and you'll have a chance to be the one who will survive ; it will not be a stab in the back during your sleep.
The instant the word would spread that the Ombra tried to kill someone in the DeLuca main house, what become of those rules ? Who stay out of reach in such case ? They would become a threat for all the Families and wouldn't survive long. Nazazi's apology is nothing more than him saying that the rules stands and, therefore, him protecting his Family.
But this do not prevent the said Ombra to attack frontally the DeLuca main house. It would be fair play, too bad if they weren't able to see them coming.


then removed Mina's leading powers, i would highly doubt anyone would have the balls to not only support Mina but get into an all out war right after that,
Firstly, like I said above, since no one except a handful of members, know what happened, there's no "after that" ; especially since Nazazi is a crazy drunkard, what is surely well known in the Family.

But now think about it a bit more. Brizio had the balls to pull a gun on Nazazi. While not in command, he stay the Head of the Family, what mean that Brizio pulled a gun on the person he swore to serve and protect ! This seriously question his loyalty, that clearly goes to Mina, not to the Family. And this raise another question, how many in the Family share his views ?
He isn't the only one, we know it, thanks to Siobhan. Nazazi ordered men to follow and protect her (in the same way that Wilfred put gents on MC's back I guess). And what happened when Mina told them to not do it ? They were ordered by the Head of the Family to protect one of the heir of the Family. Then when ordered by the person in command to stop doing it, they didn't even cared to report to the Head ? Their loyalty do not goes to the Family, and anyone who's loyalty goes directly to Mina wouldn't care this much what the dunkard Nazazi say ; once again except the handful who know what happened and have been ordered to not talk about it.


specially when the daughter would be there as well (as she was going to Deluca's Estate).
We don't know how many time there's between the two events. Generally when they are directly linked in time Hopes group them on a single event.
Of course, they come in the same update, but this don't mean that players who starts with this release will not play a mission, or some side events, in between. Therefore expecting Siobhan to appear at the end of the scene seem wrong ; it's more surely an implicit event that already happened.
Anyway, if it happened the same day, then they wouldn't know what happened in the Family. Their mission would have started before it, and no one bring a cellphone with him when he plan to frontally attack the main house of one of the top five Families.


To this we need to add the problem of firepower, its not like Deluca's are a small family, that kill shot would require the enemies to invade the perimeter first, and they don't have much firepower, much less if its just one portion of the Ombra family.
No, they haven't invaded the perimeter. Invading it wouldn't have been unnoticed, there would be gunfire, and we would have seen Wilfred interrupt the dinner, letting some gents lead at least Cordia (who would have refused), Gracie (who would have been offended) and Isabel in security.
Even a peaceful direct infiltration wouldn't have been unnoticed. One totally unknown person don't walk straight to the main house, while carry a big bag, without it raising suspicion. And the more there's people doing it, the faster they'll be people stopping them in order to know what they want ; what would then lead to the gunfire I talked about above.
The only way to do this is a long time infiltration meticulously prepared. Therefore, rogue Ombra still are plausible responsible. Between the loyalty issue and the time needed to perform the operation, it stay a valid answer.

This said, I agree that it's not the sole possibility, just the more plausible in term of story and as long as we know, there's also the "someone" option. The same "someone" who poisoned MC, corrupted a DeLuca soldato to permit a direct attack against MC, and passed a contract with the Ombra for MC's assassination. Their own assassin failed, the proxy they used failed, and the assassin Family they payed terminated the contract. It's also a reasonable guess to think that they now goes more frontal.
But, while this wouldn't lead to a direct war, since it's an unknown player, it feel like a step too far and too fast. What doesn't mean that it's not what happened, I'm not Hopes' mind, just a player like all others, so I can be wrong.
 

Damien Stark

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Jan 26, 2018
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Perhaps in your case, it's the misplaced expectations (and I don't mean any offense by this, of course)?
Oh none taken, the expectations are definitely the crux of the issue. The site's tags make it easy for people to find what they're looking for and avoid what they're not. I would have avoided this game if it was tagged VN, as I'm generally in search of games here with actual mechanics - just as many VN fans avoid the games without the VN tag because they don't want "grinding" or puzzles or whatever, just a story with their porn.

This game is just an unusual edge case (at least in its current state) where the lack of VN tag may cause VN-fans to miss it (even though it has a VN mode and they'd probably enjoy it) and gameplay-fans like myself to be disappointed that it's really at least 80% VN without the tag. But it's great at what it's doing; it's not like I'm here to bash the game or write a bad review.

From whichone's comment above, it seems like there is an expectation of more contracts/missions gameplay getting added over time, so I'll just be patient and look forward to that.
 

JJJ84

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Dec 24, 2018
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Oh none taken, the expectations are definitely the crux of the issue. The site's tags make it easy for people to find what they're looking for and avoid what they're not. I would have avoided this game if it was tagged VN, as I'm generally in search of games here with actual mechanics - just as many VN fans avoid the games without the VN tag because they don't want "grinding" or puzzles or whatever, just a story with their porn.

This game is just an unusual edge case (at least in its current state) where the lack of VN tag may cause VN-fans to miss it (even though it has a VN mode and they'd probably enjoy it) and gameplay-fans like myself to be disappointed that it's really at least 80% VN without the tag. But it's great at what it's doing; it's not like I'm here to bash the game or write a bad review.

From whichone's comment above, it seems like there is an expectation of more contracts/missions gameplay getting added over time, so I'll just be patient and look forward to that.
I'm I guess for the lack of a better term, a bit of a............... hybrid? :KEK:

I love VN games, and with gameplay and sandbox elements I don't mind the light to moderate extent of sandbox or gameplay (gameplay mechanics which require much grind, I just find myself bored pretty quickly :HideThePain: ).

With DeLuca, I really enjoy the narrative of Wilfred's contracts (as Whichone mentioned above, The Painter contract is the cream of the crop of current D-contracts, but I love others too, especially interacting with characters like Lelianna, Amita, Amata, Bikini Lady, whom we might not be able to interact as much as the main LIs), and the gameplay, while initially was challenging, I got used to it pretty quickly and towards the end, I felt the grind of it was pretty moderate level.


As Whichone also said, Hopes (dev) actually split the update to 2 parts; VN elements in this month's update, with contracts update next month.
Not sure whether it's D or C contracts (not confirmed), but you can check out Dev post prior to releasing v0.09 (courtesy of c3p0 who ported it over to this thread) as well as Hopes' post that I've also quoted.
They should give you an idea of what's coming:


Hey DeLucas

I'm currently uploading the update for 0.09.
However, it's a bit light on content due to a lot of it being cut for a next month release.
The reason for that is that a lot of the new events are from the contracts' system, which include the new Lucania (that can be traversed via the gameplay system) and events in Lucania. There are some other contract events as well such as more events with the bikini boss lady.
Most of these are already done, but I'm not quite happy with it and feels a bit scrambled. And as always, I don't like to release things I am not personally happy with.

However, since I'm finished with all the girls and main story events for season 1 and the new contract events are not related to the new events, and I've decided to release the main story event for you guys to experience.
So, you can go ahead and finish the season 1 or wait for the full contract events to get the full release content.

Hope you guys will enjoy the season 1 finale.

The story event started with a nice dinner and will end with a nice dinner :)!

Edit: I see a reaction from J³, thus I call the usual pitchfork march in advance.:ROFLMAO:

More like contract events rather then contracts missions.
Some Lucania events and introductions. This may be a bit tutorial like. Some contracts may get a bit renders in em.
Need a bit more meat on the heavy text part of the game.
Can't really say much more at the moment unfortunately.
 

whichone

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Jan 3, 2018
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From whichone's comment above, it seems like there is an expectation of more contracts/missions gameplay getting added over time, so I'll just be patient and look forward to that.
Also, contract mechanics are now being used to tell Story events.
As an e.g. if you look at the Straffan mission (written before contracts revamp) & then the Ombra mission (released post contracts revamp).
Both are major story elements, but the latter used the new contracts mechanics.

So it's not just the expected "C" rank contracts, there presumably will be other Story missions which follow the Ombra example and use the contracts format.
So I think you can be fully justified to expect more gameplay aspects, even if we don't get 4-5 new "C" contracts, just yet.
It's highly probable that some more story aspects will also utilise it going forward. (y)
 

TimHawk

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Dec 12, 2017
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Man after every update I have like 10 more questions and got zero answers to all the questions I had before the update droped sigh :D

Who gains from shooting Gracie ? That wasn't an oopsie, that was a precision rifle shot to center mass aka a killshot, who the fuck is that suicidal ? He/She/They must know that the Delucas will mow down everything between them and the shooter.

Antonio's guess that it was the "new alliance" can't be it, we learned from the ombra mission that they are still recruiting and must think that they wouldnt be on the winning side of an all out war yet.

So it has to be either something personal like revenge or a 3rd party trying to instigate a conflict between the Deluca's and whoever that 3rd party frames to have been responsible.

I love a good mystery, but it kinda sucks that we don't even have enough info to make educated guesses, let alone daring ones. :D
 
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