VN Ren'Py The Grey Dream [Ep. 5 - Steam Halloween Side Story] [TheGreys]

[MrJay]

Don't think for a minute I don't see your side as well, but understand...it was an unknown and you DID have a choice whether to go there or not. Just like in real life, sometimes our decisions that seem entertaining (fun) or wise are later found to be shit. Shouldn't a proper VN do the same? Why in the world should something that is doing it's best to simulate a "reality" all of a sudden give you instructions? Life doesn't work that way and no game you have ever played worth it's salt has either. Let's meet in the middle here just for "science". Do you see anything in what I'm saying having merit?

Porn doesn't do its best to simulate reality or realism and it absolutely shouldn't anyway. Porn literally exists as a form of escapism, as a way to do and experience stuff you couldn't just go outside and do right now. Realism is completely misplaced in porn. Porn is a terrible medium to try and tell a realistic story. You can still tell GOOD stories as long as they are in service of the porn itself, and many have achieved this, but realism and ideas of reality can only serve to make porn worse.

It doesn't matter what your kinks are, getting to live them out vividly, dream of scenarios that can never or will never happen in real life, that's why porn exists. If you put disappointment in your porn games, you have fundamentally misunderstood what porn is about. Unless you're specifically catering to disappointment fetishists, but that's a very niche fetish.

Every single time a game interrupts me and asks me whether I want to see the upcoming content, I am genuinely thankful and I know its made by a developer that cares and understands the people who play these game. It doesn't matter if that warning is for something I'm really into, because I understand not everything is about me. The only time this isn't necessary is if that kink is the main focus of the game. But in this case it isn't.

And it's so simple. Coding in these warnings are the simplest things you can do, they prevent so much disappointment and just completely makes any game strictly better.

 

[Sancho1969]

Porn doesn't do its best to simulate reality or realism and it absolutely shouldn't anyway. Porn literally exists as a form of escapism, as a way to do and experience stuff you couldn't just go outside and do right now. Realism is completely misplaced in porn. Porn is a terrible medium to try and tell a realistic story. You can still tell GOOD stories as long as they are in service of the porn itself, and many have achieved this, but realism and ideas of reality can only serve to make porn worse.

It doesn't matter what your kinks are, getting to live them out vividly, dream of scenarios that can never or will never happen in real life, that's why porn exists. If you put disappointment in your porn games, you have fundamentally misunderstood what porn is about. Unless you're specifically catering to disappointment fetishists, but that's a very niche fetish.

Every single time a game interrupts me and asks me whether I want to see the upcoming content, I am genuinely thankful and I know its made by a developer that cares and understands the people who play these game. It doesn't matter if that warning is for something I'm really into, because I understand not everything is about me. The only time this isn't necessary is if that kink is the main focus of the game. But in this case it isn't.

And it's so simple. Coding in these warnings are the simplest things you can do, they prevent so much disappointment and just completely makes any game strictly better.

Okay, I hear ya... but the tags "Female domination" and "Humiliation" represent a portion of what you say is "the main focus of the game", right? So, you know by default they exist whether we pretend the don't or not... they are stated clearly. I'm not trying to pick hairs here, just saying your being very picky that (to date) the very best VN's ever produced (by mass view/DL/review criteria) all have in common... the element of surprise and unexpected which may or may not be in favor of the player ("Acting Lessons" comes to mind as a perfect example). There has to be an accepted tolerance of surprise as with any fictional media representing it's intended realm whether it be a VN, a motion picture, a book, a song, whatever. Again, I see your point of view but there's more to it than the very basic aspect you are trying to place a "perfect VN for you" in...imho of course. This is the the debate of old... how many folks can a developer/author satisfy or not. Just like any great novel or movie there will be critics on both sides that defend their view to the grave... so I get it. I only hope that the VN is not ruined for you as I personally see it as a potential to be one of the few outstanding we get to experience. Time will certainly tell us whether that is true or not for sure.

 

[MrJay]

Okay, I hear ya... but the tags "Female domination" and "Humiliation" represent a portion of what you say is "the main focus of the game", right? So, you know by default they exist whether we pretend the don't or not... they are stated clearly. I'm not trying to pick hairs here, just saying your being very picky that (to date) the very best VN's ever produced (by mass view/DL/review criteria) all have in common... the element of surprise and unexpected which may or may not be in favor of the player ("Acting Lessons" comes to mind as a perfect example). There has to be an accepted tolerance of surprise as with any fictional media representing it's intended realm whether it be a VN, a motion picture, a book, a song, whatever. Again, I see your point of view but there's more to it than the very basic aspect you are trying to place a "perfect VN for you" in...imho of course. This is the the debate of old... how many folks can a developer/author satisfy or not. Just like any great novel or movie there will be critics on both sides that defend their view to the grave... so I get it. I only hope that the VN is not ruined for you as I personally see it as a potential to be one of the few outstanding we get to experience. Time will certainly tell us whether that is true or not for sure.

But that's the thing, there's no way to know. AFAIK when it comes to f96zone tagging rules, you're basically expected and encouraged to put every single tag on your game that appears even once, no matter how small. The tag system doesn't let us understand what's the main focus of the game or what is something that just appears once in a small and completely avoidable scene.

Also, like usual, the tags doesn't tell enough. The "Humiliation" tag doesn't say who's doing and who's receiving the humiliation. Because for me there's a GIGANTIC difference between whether it's the MC who's getting humiliated or whether he humiliates someone else.

Just as a hypothetical, if there was any way to tell that a core focus of this game was meant to be humiliation of the MC, I would just pressed ignore on this game and have forgotten it forever, and that would have been for the best. But as it stands, there's just no way to know.

And this isn't about removing all surprise. You can still surprise your audience, just don't ever do it with new kinks, because doing that is a surefire way to disappoint a good amount of people. There are so many other story elements that you can surprise with, there's no reason to do it with kinks.

As for "how many people can a developer" satisfy, I think that's one of the problems, that too many games tries to cater to too many kinks/fetishes/themes and it just *always* makes the games suffer for it. It doesn't matter if it's NTR, humiliation, watersports or literally any other kink, the BEST thing you can do is have a heavy focus on it or leave it out completely. NO ONE is going to be thankful because your game has a certain kink every 5-10 updates or something. If you make sure you game focuses on, for example, humiliation, then EVERYONE will be happier because humiliation fans are ecstatic and humiliation haters like myself am also happy, because then I understand without the shadow of a doubt that this game isn't for me. If a game has humiliation rarely, it's a disappointment for everyone instead. Humiliation fans don't get enough, humiliation haters get too much.

Doesn't matter how successful a game is (because there are so many other factors at play), if a developer tightens down the kinks in it so it contains fewer kinks but each kinks gets much more content, it's 100% going to be more successful and 100% have a lot fewer people complaining about the content of the game.

 

[Sancho1969]

But that's the thing, there's no way to know. AFAIK when it comes to f96zone tagging rules, you're basically expected and encouraged to put every single tag on your game that appears even once, no matter how small. The tag system doesn't let us understand what's the main focus of the game or what is something that just appears once in a small and completely avoidable scene.

Also, like usual, the tags doesn't tell enough. The "Humiliation" tag doesn't say who's doing and who's receiving the humiliation. Because for me there's a GIGANTIC difference between whether it's the MC who's getting humiliated or whether he humiliates someone else.

Just as a hypothetical, if there was any way to tell that a core focus of this game was meant to be humiliation of the MC, I would just pressed ignore on this game and have forgotten it forever, and that would have been for the best. But as it stands, there's just no way to know.

And this isn't about removing all surprise. You can still surprise your audience, just don't ever do it with new kinks, because doing that is a surefire way to disappoint a good amount of people. There are so many other story elements that you can surprise with, there's no reason to do it with kinks.

As for "how many people can a developer" satisfy, I think that's one of the problems, that too many games tries to cater to too many kinks/fetishes/themes and it just *always* makes the games suffer for it. It doesn't matter if it's NTR, humiliation, watersports or literally any other kink, the BEST thing you can do is have a heavy focus on it or leave it out completely. NO ONE is going to be thankful because your game has a certain kink every 5-10 updates or something. If you make sure you game focuses on, for example, humiliation, then EVERYONE will be happier because humiliation fans are ecstatic and humiliation haters like myself am also happy, because then I understand without the shadow of a doubt that this game isn't for me. If a game has humiliation rarely, it's a disappointment for everyone instead. Humiliation fans don't get enough, humiliation haters get too much.

Doesn't matter how successful a game is (because there are so many other factors at play), if a developer tightens down the kinks in it so it contains fewer kinks but each kinks gets much more content, it's 100% going to be more successful and 100% have a lot fewer people complaining about the content of the game.

Again, I sincerely think the magic formula is the middle ground here... so far (historically) it has been. The most successful of all media have not catered to one centric group at all, none. So, it's a balanced affair that's, to your point delicate, but must be accepted with a reasonable amount of tolerance in all directions to at least experience the outcome of the producer's intent, which we currently don't know at all. I know this sounds like a cop-out, but hear me for what I'm really saying. Again, I sincerely hope that your experiences with anything you reach for are enjoyable, I don't wish anything else but that... I just think that the "discovered" camera shock is a bit blown out of proportion if I'm being honest. But that's obviously just my personal perspective.

 

[Lussunlora]

Android

 

[JohnF95zone]

Why? Because some people don't like certain content, it's that simple. Seeing that voyeur content actually ruined my playthrough of this update and I didn't enjoy it at all, no matter how good the later scenes were. If the game would have just told me, I would have a chance to avoid seeing it and maybe I would have been fine.

Imagine if you're playing a f95 game and it just suddenly goes to scat porn, snuff porn or something else that you find really disgusting, wouldn't that ruin the experience for you? It doesn't matter if you can go back and take another route because you've already seen it and you can't unsee it. If the game doesn't tell you it will lead to that it's going to happen to a lot of people.

So no, you can't argue for "let players find out themselves" when a game mixes many different fetishes that obviously some people are not going to be into.

Most games this game included provides contents that may not appeal to all players (for example, harem, incest, three letter words or any other alphabets).

A player needs to be diligent in choosing which games that they are comfortable and like playing and it is not the other way around. The developer does not need to make the game to appeal or comply with all players tastes and preferences. Also, it is impossible for the developer to anticipate all kinds of players preferences.

When I play any game, that is just how I roll "let the players find out themselves" so that is why I appreciate it when games don't tell or warn players ahead of time. As you have described, you are a different type of player, who likes to be told or warned beforehand. The developer can't satisfy all different type of players out there (just these 2 types alone are impossible to begin with) and perhaps the game itself was developed for very specific or limited types of audiences in the first place.

My suggestion is perhaps you find out if the contents are safe (i.e. does not contain the type of contents that you dislike) first before playing any games (or updates) especially for new games that you have little knowledge about. Cheers.

 

[Deleted member 2030943]

Damn, game looks amazing, story is good too. Too bad femdom or footjobs do nothing for me or I'd be a subscriber. I'd say good luck, but don't think the dev team needs it

 

[RPDL]

TheGreys Congrats, game looks great.

I have a little feedback, some of the scenes are a little too dark - brightening it up just a tad will make a big difference i think. It might be good to get a second person to read over the script too, there's a few small little things that would be easily picked up and improved on.

Aside from that, looking forward to seeing where this goes - thanks very much!

 

[goulet1995]

We won't force you to do anything, folks. Chill. Every sex scene in the game will be avoidable.

so is thescene they are talking about avoidable?

 

[TheGreys]

so is thescene they are talking about avoidable?

Yes, just don't take the camera.

 

[goulet1995]

Yes, just don't take the camera.

on this forum there is a big difference in avoidable and skippable. avoidable is used when you can stop something from happening completely so if there was a way make it so the scene on the camera never actually happened what this seems to be is more skip able where it happened but you dont have to see it. Unless you are saying if you dont take the camera it means that what was on it never happened at all.

also whether she is a love interest or not will factor into how people view it as well if she is its enough for alot of people to ignore the game if not while they might not like the scene some might still play

 

[Leon979]

Why do you think something happened when you didn't take the camera? If you didn't take the camera, nothing will happen.

 

[Muddin4fun2002]

Is there going to be a android update?

 

[TheGreys]

Is there going to be a android update?

Added.

 

[J1215]

Yes, just don't take the camera.

I liked that scene (on camera). For me, this is the best intimate scene in the game. I hope such a scene will also be possible between Beth and MC (and between MC and other girls also).

 

[Rockero_69]

According to the renders it looks good, the description is a bit vague, however the labels give you a little understanding. But the key question to download, play and support the game is will there be a Harem route?

 

[Ursus4321]

Nice graphics, still too early to say much about it other than that.

Peeking under the hood, practically any choice that improves character relationships also increases the MC's "sigma" score, while "alpha" choices are mostly ineffectual or detrimental to his relationships; no idea how that'll shake out down the line, but always slightly concerned for the future direction when I see those silly labels thrown around.

Occasionally the English is a bit off, but it's not a constant problem. The white text can be tricky to read on light backgrounds.

I totally agree. And seeing the labels makes me think that I will wait a while before playing this to see what effect those alpha and sigma points have. I don't want my mc to end up being no lady's bitch

 

[dolfe67]

I totally agree. And seeing the labels makes me think that I will wait a while before playing this to see what effect those alpha and sigma points have. I don't want my mc to end up being no lady's bitch

There is some instances where the alpha points are checked against sigma points and play the scene differently. So just farm alpha points in your case and you should be fine.

 

[SpyderArachnid]

I totally agree. And seeing the labels makes me think that I will wait a while before playing this to see what effect those alpha and sigma points have. I don't want my mc to end up being no lady's bitch

I think they are more along the lines of bad guy vs good guy. From checking the dialogues, having more alpha makes you more of a rude jerk guy. While being more sigma, makes you more of the casual nice guy.

At least, that's what I've seen so far. No idea how that will affect things further though.

 

[SixtyNineGaming]

This VN is great. Feels like it has potential to be one of the greats. Can't wait to see future updates.