Ren'Py The Eternal Malevolence [v0.2] [.StaringAtTheSky]

[moddingnoob]

This is my new favorite game. I really like the vibe of the game.

Only problem I kind of have is that it would be nice if Gwen was still bratty even when you compel her. Like she still talks back but is now yours. I just felt like it kind of removed some of her personality.

 

[moddingnoob]

Well, it doesn't mean the stories aren't there. What I tried to say, and perhaps poorly expressed myself, is that there is no one narrow and specific story, but more like the stories of MC's adventures , and they contain different, not moral, but I would say different purposes. I will take an example from what's already in the game and also from what I'm planning in the future.

There is obviously a planned story about revenge, that will have a theme of manipulation, gaslighting, humiliation, etc. But it doesn't mean there won't be a story, you will learn a lot about the past, about some things that were not explained in the prologue.

And there is also a story about school, let's take the teacher for example, obviously, this story really doesn't have a lot in common with MC's past and the 'magical' part of his life, but rather how in my world this school works, what sort of people go there, how you can push their buttons. So you could say that these two storylines are not really connected, which is why sandbox is very useful since you have different avenues to explore and you decide which interests you more, the first one or the last one.
And about the last bit where you go boom and the character is mind-controlled. For that purpose, I introduced this narrative that the MC is really weak at the beginning and gradually becomes stronger. So that at first, you can slowly corrupt 'easy' characters but as the game goes further the speed of corruption and also the 'importance' and the 'strength of will' of characters get bigger. Because the tempo of the game as the development goes further and the players' progress gets more advanced they will naturally feel the power and influence of MC become mightier.
Hope I expressed my direction of the game as eloquently as I could.

You could do a midway point through the game, where maybe the character graduates high school, moves into a large house, moves all his current women in with him, and then the next big part of the story begins. Would be a good way to justify the harem part of the story happening at home with small groups of the characters that otherwise would not interact. And it would make the player feel like they're reaching a big milestone on his way to regaining his power

 

[Xaos_]

- Katherine second Event "Fun in her room": I really hope I took in the right direction, but I like the way it turned out.

That event was Fire! Amazing! Definitely the right direction!
After the 'shower' event, i was worried that you wouldn't have any dark options and her story would be relatively vanilla but her kinks are just perfect… So we might get an option for a corruption path later on.


Hope that you have plans for a more dark path for Katherine, maybe have a split in some future shower scene with an option to order her to her knees for a blowjob (a rough & deep one) (still not trully dark & evil since we already established that we care about her too much to turn her into a mindless doll…) and slowly mold her into your favorite little kinky & obediant slave that truly loves her position (but still has her personality intact), unlike that mindless doll/sex slave in the corner that you got after her brother tried to mob you.
Of course, you can have a more "vanilla" path where you don't use much magic on her and just slowly explore her newfound kinks, ending up with a kinky girlfriend.
(in both routes you help her completely move on from the tragic death of her parents)

Options like these would be nice, because they would fit nicely between the trully evil and dark side of the mind control genre (mindless dolls, mind-break + BDSM, masochism, +++) and the 'soft' side, where mind control is used to help the formation of romantic…ish relationships with minor alterations to their personality (& the use of it for good causes…). We need something in the middie, for the characters where going really harsh (or soft) doesn't fit the plot for them (the MC hates/loves her too much), so we aren't stuck with either something resembling romance or mindless dolls (for those that dont like the extremes) and we have some choice on how we treat the girls.

I really wonder how far will you go with the extreme evil side of the MC and which girls can end up completely mindbroken.
(hopefully Gwen and Zoe)[Lutessa is a guarantee (possible enemy)](and Olivia looks promising already!).

 

[Smrdgy]

I really like what I see so far except the eternal clicking in the sandbox and the lack of choices so far, but I guess the latter will change later on.

If I may suggest, please add some of these QoL improvements at some point:

• Character tracker
  • for example Agent17 has it absolutely well done with portrait iconography
• Hide/disable empty locations
• The journal is much more important than the inventory, either separate them or flip the order
• A button to skip to the required time and day for the event to trigger (maybe even teleport to the required location?). For example to the journal.
• % of completed quests so we don't have to click through all the characters to see "Wait for the next update."

 

[Tyrranus]

smrdgy has really good ideas there

 

[tsunku]

ok it said there is a journal, where the hell is it???\

edit: ok found it, you should have said it was in inventory upper left corner. was driving me nuts wondering where a seperate journal icon was haha

edit #2: ok now i know i need to influence olivia, it's afternoon and she's unselectable. also how to go to classes?? i'm there but can't interact with anything other than return same with any other room in the school or at home.

 

[.StaringAtTheSky]

You could do a midway point through the game, where maybe the character graduates high school, moves into a large house, moves all his current women in with him, and then the next big part of the story begins. Would be a good way to justify the harem part of the story happening at home with small groups of the characters that otherwise would not interact. And it would make the player feel like they're reaching a big milestone on his way to regaining his power

You are really spot on, that was, and still is, my thinking in which direction to take the game later on, it is obviously something that will come much much further on in the story, but it is definitely something I keep in mind.

 

[.StaringAtTheSky]

That event was Fire! Amazing! Definitely the right direction!
After the 'shower' event, i was worried that you wouldn't have any dark options and her story would be relatively vanilla but her kinks are just perfect… So we might get an option for a corruption path later on.


Hope that you have plans for a more dark path for Katherine
We need something in the middie, for the characters where going really harsh (or soft) doesn't fit the plot for them (the MC hates/loves her too much), so we aren't stuck with either something resembling romance or mindless dolls (for those that dont like the extremes) and we have some choice on how we treat the girls.

I really wonder how far will you go with the extreme evil side of the MC and which girls can end up completely mindbroken.
(hopefully Gwen and Zoe)[Lutessa is a guarantee (possible enemy)](and Olivia looks promising already!).

Exactly! Obviously, I try not to make MC a complete sociopath but rather someone who isn't afraid to cross the line. So with characters who deserve extreme treatment( such as enemies, threats, obnoxious people, and so on), I will develop the story in a more demeaning way(There will still be choices to focus on something particular), but with characters who are more on a good side of MC it's not natural to be unnecessarily cruel, but rather if the player decides so, take them a bit further into the 'dark' side with kinks and fetishes, and guide them towards it.

 

[.StaringAtTheSky]

• Character tracker
  • for example Agent17 has it absolutely well done with portrait iconography
• Hide/disable empty locations
• The journal is much more important than the inventory, either separate them or flip the order
• A button to skip to the required time and day for the event to trigger (maybe even teleport to the required location?). For example to the journal.
• % of completed quests so we don't have to click through all the characters to see "Wait for the next update."

Those are very sound ideas. Thanks a lot!

I played Agent17 when it was first released but I have to revisit it to see how it's done there. (Maybe I will 'borrow' some ideas in that sense)

The truth behind the journal being in the inventory is that I forgot about the journal when I was designing how to make the HUD look so that it is the best I came up with on short notice. I will take some time to think about the designs in the interface since it is something that doesn't come easily to me.

I feel you there about the locations, as a developer I obviously want those locations to exist during the development so I can see where the story can take place, where I can start the event, where it would be appropriate, etc. But in the early stage of the game (just like right now) when most of them are empty and don't have anything it seems reasonable to lock them up temporarily. And the idea about time skips and teleports is definitely something I will add, that just requires a lot of very meticulous work so it will take some time.(We wouldn't want to break the game completely, right?)

Thanks again for this very constructive criticism. The reason I use F95 and interact with almost everyone in the thread (especially at this stage of development) is so that I can as accurately as possible make the game as comfortable as possible while also maintaining my vision of the game without going too far away.

 

[.StaringAtTheSky]

edit #2: ok now i know i need to influence olivia, it's afternoon and she's unselectable. also how to go to classes?? i'm there but can't interact with anything other than return same with any other room in the school or at home.

The event with Olivia triggers automatically in the school lobby. If you go to school at a specific time then instead of a school map, you will see the mc saying that he should talk to Olivia. Currently, you can not just interact with characters at any time since I thought it would be pointless until I fill it with content.

If the event still doesn't trigger for you, I would really like for you to tell me details, what week day it is, what events you have seen, etc. If there is a problem with the code, I will address it as soon as possible.

 

[santiago_campanella]

I'm struggling to imagine how it would look like since the 'key', if I may say so, to my storytelling is that most characters, with some exceptions, have their own 'arcs' and stories.
And this is what I a genuinely interested in discussing since I feel like my 'sandbox', for the most part, lacks what some people find annoying. There is no grind, no blind wandering, no useless stats that don't do anything. I believe that it serves more as an instrument to 'transition' from one story to a completely different one. But I would love to hear other people's thoughts on that.

This is basically how it is done in The Regional Manager -- loads of content and loads of interactions and stories, there is progression, but there is almost no grind. It is, in my opinion, one of the best sandbox-style games out there, surpassing Agent 17 (by content amount and grind-lessness, if you choose to play the game with unlimited money, which is an option when selecting new game).

It seems you have your game set out pretty well, but in case you haven't checked out TRM, I heartily recommend giving it a look -- might provide you perhaps something useful (it is also a heavily maledom game, with only the evil path implemented). The only issue sandbox games tend to have, as far as I noticed, is whenever some variables get mixed up or not properly updated, leading to content loops or inability to continue on a path, so that's something to watch out for.

 

[DarrenH]

I think you've done a great job so far dev, I really enjoyed the prologue. I think the sandbox section needs some work to be more enjoyable however.

There is a lot of unnecessary clicking in the game at the moment. The home isn't too bad with the navigation bar the only thing I would add is either a 'go outside' button in the navigation bar or a map button that doesn't utilize navigation bar to take you outside from anywhere in the house.

I think the schools navigation should be reworked. I'd rather see it all displayed at once rather than having to arrow through the floors. A city button on each floor or even independent from the schools navigation menu would be a good alternative as well. 16 locations throughout 4 floors, it's pretty big.

I also think visual event tracking would benefit the player experience a lot more than the journal even though I know it is a lot of work especially for one developer to implement. It is early in development though which is beneficial. By that I mean if there is an event at location 'take a walk' in the 'afternoon' a character icon appears at that location to show you an event is available even just a simple exclamation mark would be better than nothing. Events that require further navigation such as 'School' 'Floor 4' 'classroom 4-3' should also show the character portrait. Likewise if you are at home and there is an event available outside the new 'go outside' button or map would display a portrait.

I was just thinking that the gym is quite large too. Perhaps a navigation bar there too? Or even change footprints to the name of their destination. There is a text button for return it I think it would aid navigation to have the names of the other locations displayed too instead of footprints.

That's my 2 cents, peace out.

 

[grumble314]

Ok am starting to hate the sand box I'm on day 3 in the morning and there is absolutely nothing to click on can't take a walk go to police or Romanov corp and going to every room in school has nothing to click on. Actually there is one thing I can click on it's to sleep in my own bedroom.

 

[Raoddik]

Well... I really like how it's turning out so far even if I never was fan of such big sandboxes. For now it's a little bare but since it's really early version it's understandable. I really like the direction Katherine development is going (assuming that I understand it correctly ), also I'm really curious how different patch for Olivia will turn out and the difference in kinks between them.

Overall not much content so far but the foundations seems to be there and the game seems really promising. Really looking forward to the next version! Good job!

 

[kxjoh32]

got bored decided to play the new version and I gotta pause and say extra points for the Velvet Velour poster on the MC's wall

anyone that remembers VtMB1 is certainly bound to make a good story

That game was one of my favs fully modded. Also, to use my old old 3D tv to play this game, the tv you had to wear the glasses with, was a blast oh and so was watching Avatar in 3D hehe

Once I started working on this game for some reason I got really interested in adding many different references, some are more subtle than others and I quite liked it. It doesn't matter where the reference comes from. It could be games, music, TV shows, movies, anime... Characters' names, posters, or direct quotes. I'm really curious if players will catch some of them or all of them and if it gets the giggle or a smile out of people, then it means I did it right...

Oh boy does Velvet Velour take me down some killer memory lanes lol. Game fully modded and years later on my 3D TV *vampire the masquerade - bloodlines* One hell of a game and so is yours Just started when i saw that painting of VV

 

[tsunku]

The event with Olivia triggers automatically in the school lobby. If you go to school at a specific time then instead of a school map, you will see the mc saying that he should talk to Olivia. Currently, you can not just interact with characters at any time since I thought it would be pointless until I fill it with content.

If the event still doesn't trigger for you, I would really like for you to tell me details, what week day it is, what events you have seen, etc. If there is a problem with the code, I will address it as soon as possible.

okay thanks for the explanation, should be added to the hints..

 

[Brady2626]

no idea how to progess all the hints for the unlocked girls say wait for next update but there seems to be 2 girls i havent met yet and MC still has hints that dont really give any info

Spoiler: help

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[.StaringAtTheSky]

no idea how to progess all the hints for the unlocked girls say wait for next update but there seems to be 2 girls i havent met yet and MC still has hints that dont really give any info

Spoiler: help

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Unfortunately, if all girls' hints say 'wait for the next update' it means you played through everything this update has to offer. 2 Locked girls are not currently in the game. I already desighed them and already written their stories, but events with them, including the introductions, are not there yet

 

[Brady2626]

Unfortunately, if all girls' hints say 'wait for the next update' it means you played through everything this update has to offer. 2 Locked girls are not currently in the game. I already desighed them and already written their stories, but events with them, including the introductions, are not there yet

ok then thank you might i suggest a "you've found all the content" or adding a wait till next update on MCs hints as well in the future?

 

[Graff koo]

Dev What's about the discord idea i gave you? You said yes , right? when?