Ren'Py The Null Hypothesis [v0.8a] [Ron Chon]

[TeeEight]

Looked promising... but after a few minutes i couldn't play anymore due to the used colors and fonts in the dialogs which are too difficult for me to read. Pity, looked like a nice game with promising plot.

During character creation, you can influence the way your 'textbox' looks, at least the colour anyway. Is it in the background of your character image? There's a bunch of available colours. IF you do mean the font, not much can be done about that. Maybe it'll be a feature in the future?

I will say though, it's such a minor thing but I love that my textbox is this purple thing. It gives me dark-mode vibes.

90% of mutant characters are on the cards for this game.

Oh? Who are the 10% not in the cards? I think I read Gwenpool might not be but honestly, I like Kurt... I don't want him to stop 'tutorializing' me

I do appreciate that JEAN MOTHERFUCKING GREY isn't a bitch in this one. A bit full of herself, and strangely driven to be the best to the exclusion of all else (until you come along...), but far more likable than in Rogue Like.

Yeah, I wasn't sure about letting her be kinda domme-y or at very least dominant in the relationship. I even rejected her attempt at ordering for me on the first date... But then... After a while... I decided I wasn't going to reject her tendencies. She's cute whenever i let her have her fun anyway and you know what? Being able to play a Switch is not something I get to do in either writing or in games like these.

 

[buttfan]

I'm not a fan of sub/dom in either direction, that said, I don't mind a woman who knows what she wants and is willing to say so, so I was encouraging that with Laura.

I've heard that said many times, many guys like dominant women, not because they want to be dominated or they are submissive, but because they like the woman simply saying what she wants and going after it. Always having to be the one to initiate everything gets tiresome.

 

[SifRed]

Hi I don't know if it was already sayed, but I think the message function of the telephone is bugged, well at least for me, since it shows errors when the girls reply to one of text options during events, or they simply don't respond and the event progresses as if they did.

 

[ShinyBoots1993]

Why is this a hard concept for many people to grasp?

You should have seen the guy saying we were making the game have "less content" and not replacing it with anything.

Everyone in the thread pointed with giant neon signs at the multi-chapter narrative.

In my case its not the optional quest, it's the side quest, and without advancing it you can't advance the rest of her relationship.

The side quest aren't needed for the main relationship itself. Side quests give stats and plot.

We're not sure WHY Jean's final relationship quest has weird RNG but we've had people take in game months to get and some it only takes a few days.

Yes,I am also hoping for some Emma Frost and Storm content.

Storm is confirmed for chapter 2.

but after a few minutes i couldn't play anymore due to the used colors and fonts in the dialogs which are too difficult for me to read.

As others have said, you can change everything but the font. We do have accessibility options.

*might* screw up the UI real estate

Yeah if we changed the font it'd DEFINITELY screw over.

I do appreciate that JEAN MOTHERFUCKING GREY isn't a bitch in this one. A bit full of herself, and strangely driven to be the best to the exclusion of all else (until you come along...), but far more likable than in Rogue Like.

In the original comics, she was the group's den mother and a child prodigy... Though that wasn't explored much because she was "The Girl" character. So since the game's story is taking place during the mid 2000s and not the 60s, we decided to ask "What would that be like now?"

since it shows errors

Can you show me the error message? So I can post it for the devs.

 

[Wallsfalldown]

I'm loving the tit reactions when the girls grab them, change poses, change bras. It's little things that really make this game feel good. Great addition.

 

[ddtmm]

can't wait to play it, great work dev team!

 

[ＧＡＢ]

Is it possible to activate on Android?

this goes beyond my knowledge. It would be better to do apply the code then patch the game for android

 

[ShinyBoots1993]

TeeEight I read your review and I want to address some questions and points since it was so nice and detailed.

1. I'm sorry if I came off as abrasive. Sometimes I do get sassy with people.

2. We're not out of Beta. We're still EARLY beta. We did have a closed Alpha, which may be the cause of confusion. Everything is so polished because we were having it cook for awhile. However some bugs and features still feel like beta because it still is a beta.

3. We've been working on this for a little over a year. There's no doubts, sense of burnout or anything. We aren't reaching for the moon like some over eager people do, we're just very careful in our planning. Trust me we talk over potential features and inclusions to make sure we don't bite off more than we can chew.

4. Storm will be in chapter 2 and yes each chapter will come with 3 girls.

5. Rogue, and the other girls, will continue to get character development as time goes on. However this is just chapter 1 of a 6 chapter narrative. We're also tweaking her and the other girls' quirks.

6. Kurt will be getting more interactions and Colossus is going to be a sandbox NPC as well. There's story reasons for him not being in the sandbox for chapter 1 that I can't spoil. Hanging out with the bros is going to be optional content that you can do and every girl will have a fully platonic version of their route.

There's talk of making Juggy a bro in some capacity.

 

[ShinyBoots1993]

Is it possible to activate on Android?

I have no idea. Someone made a cheat injector but I'm not sure if it's Android compatible.

I'm loving the tit reactions when the girls grab them, change poses, change bras. It's little things that really make this game feel good. Great addition.

I mentioned some renpy tricks to make things seem a little more lively and Ron decided to disregard that advice and instead use live 2D and commission more arm variants. No smoak and mirrors, actual content. Love the mad lad.

 

[ShinyBoots1993]

MidnightKing I liked your review too so I'll address some things

First off. If you don't have any interest in X-Men or Marvel this might not be the game for you. If you do have interest and want to see what the X-Men are like compared to our portrayal, we have suggested readings in the girls biographies.

Secondly,

And damn do you have to grind. It's not as if it's hard, but just incredibly uninteresting. Each girl has a trust and love level to raise. As you might guess, you repeat events such as training and studying to raise them, along with saying the right things in dialogue. My big issue with this is that like 70%? of the games events get summarized with a couple lines of flavor text. Sometimes you get some extra dialogue with a girl, but not much before it ends and you do it again the next day. There's not even close to enough unique scenarios, causing it to feel very stale very quickly.

The MC is designed for you to be able to self insert. He has minimal background, and you never see any part of his body. Unfortunately this just means he's very forgettable. Every once in awhile he talks about his struggles adapting to this new school and having powers, but in no way does that really get portrayed. You literally don't do anything besides get friendlier with the girls. I was waiting for the game to maybe pick up with some type of action where we actually have to use our powers or implement our combat training, but in the few hours I played that didn't happen.

Aaaaaaaaaaalllll of this? I see the writers actively addressing it as I'm typing this out. Some things are going to feel like they're not fleshed out enough... and that's because they're not. We're still very much a work in progress. Genuinely every issue you've expressed in this quote is something we are actively discussing in the writer's room.

The grind isn't going to be reduced for the reason that we're going to be adding more events and make the repeatable interactions have more variations and change in tone depending on progression.

First, there's no handcrafted intimate moments that play out into satisfying sex scenes.

This part confused me as the first penetrative sex scene with every girl is entirely scripted. Because we wanted it to be intimate and emotional.

In the end though if it's not for you it's not for you. I just really appreciate the long ones that are detailed and wanted to mention that your major gripes are being addressed and worked on.

 

[Thwip!]

Yes,I am also hoping for some Emma Frost and Storm content.

As much as I love RL:E, I hope to GOD that the devs for this game don't take inspiration for Emma from that game.
Emma Frost, IMHO, should be dangerously seductive and jaw-droppingly beautiful because (at least in the comic) she uses her sex-appeal as another weapon.
For RL:E, it's pretty clear that someone had a "mommy" fetish, and that's where thought into her design ended.

Again: not dunking on RL:E. It's an amazing game!

 

[MidnightKing]

Hello! Glad my review was constructively received and I appreciate you taking in feedback. Sometimes I feel like a dick when I give a lower review score and then get reached out to about it, but I tried to be genuine. To address a couple things back at you:

First off. If you don't have any interest in X-Men or Marvel this might not be the game for you. If you do have interest and want to see what the X-Men are like compared to our portrayal, we have suggested readings in the girls biographies.

Yeah I actually did appreciate that feature. It was nice for someone like me who's effectively clueless about X-Men. I say I don't have any particular interest in superheroes, but I don't have a disdain for them either. Going in I was essentially saying to myself "alright lets see if this game makes me care about the X-Men" and I don't think it did a bad job of doing so.

Aaaaaaaaaaalllll of this? I see the writers actively addressing it as I'm typing this out. Some things are going to feel like they're not fleshed out enough... and that's because they're not. We're still very much a work in progress. Genuinely every issue you've expressed in this quote is something we are actively discussing in the writer's room.

The grind isn't going to be reduced for the reason that we're going to be adding more events and make the repeatable interactions have more variations and change in tone depending on progression.

Glad to hear that. I'll say I went into this with no knowledge of what's being done behind the scenes so to speak, or even what future plans are and stuff like that. Haven't even read this thread. I'm mostly writing my review based on what's present. But you guys being aware of this stuff and discussing it gives me confidence in that yeah I have full belief it will change, and that's nice to know.

I really don't have issue with the amount of it, just yeah like you said it needs that variety.

This part confused me as the first penetrative sex scene with every girl is entirely scripted. Because we wanted it to be intimate and emotional.

Glad you pointed this out to me as well. So I played the game up until just after completing the third Rouge date. I'm guessing that penetrative scene happens further down the line than that? After that last date I was expecting some type of new event to maybe start playing after you get back to the school, but it didn't seem like there was anything immediate. The only thing I was seeing was that heart button to go into the lewd stuff, and being able to progressively do more things with her in that menu. I just assumed at that point all of the lewd stuff was going to be like that, so my fault there. I'll update my review to reflect that.

Regardless of my current feelings towards the game, it's cool to see you guys be active and passionate about it. I'll probably return to this down the line when things are more developed and take another crack at it.

 

[RoadWulf]

So I ended up playing through all the content, it's definitely better than Rogue-like in a lot of ways.

Just a quick question... am I gonna get a backlog of all this EXP I've earned past Level 5 that I'm not getting credit for?

 

[ShinyBoots1993]

Just a quick question... am I gonna get a backlog of all this EXP I've earned past Level 5 that I'm not getting credit for?

That depends how we implement it... I'm not technical minded enough to know which is preferable so it depends on how Ron chooses to program it.

 

[elchoto]

i have trouble with this quest, it never trigger. i think this is a bug
how do i fix it?

 

[Dazzier31]

Oh? Who are the 10% not in the cards? I think I read Gwenpool might not be but honestly, I like Kurt... I don't want him to stop 'tutorializing' me

First of all, don't take my numbers literal, I spitball a lot. Now, that said, you like Kurt? Or you like Kurt? Because as Shiny said, Nightbrowler is gonna continue to be a thing, but if you are saying you wanna get nasty with the blue elf then you might wanna sit on that one.

About which characters most likely not in the cards: For the base game, any character introduced after the year 2000, those would need to be a bonus/dlc thing. Besides that? Nobody in a happy marriage (like Sue Storm) or that don't swing Null's way.

There's talk of making Juggy a bro in some capacity.

You were holding that secret from me and I won't lie, it hurts... but I wanna.

 

[anaogigan]

Does anyone have any saves?

 

[TeeEight]

All that

Kurt will be getting more interactions and Colossus is going to be a sandbox NPC as well. There's story reasons for him not being in the sandbox for chapter 1 that I can't spoil. Hanging out with the bros is going to be optional content that you can do and every girl will have a fully platonic version of their route.

Oh man, thanks for taking the time to read the review and replying to it to boot!

And yeah, there was definitely some confusion. I didn't even know there was a closed beta? Or maybe that's the one I'm thinking of... I feel like there was another thread for his game. But anyway!

And yeah, I keep forgetting this is only Chapter 1... There's a lot of content or feels like a lot of content. Maybe the VN's I've played with multiple chapters out has thrown my speed out of whack.

I have to say though... 6 Chapters feel short... Although, that's just me and honestly that's... 18 girls? That's way more than a lot of harem games. Honestly, if Chapter 6 ending is 'open-ended' or at least provides a 'play forever' option, I'm probably gonna be happy.

Although, hindsight. That's probably a source of burnout, the devs chugging out 10+, 20+ chapters for their story. Better to end on a high note than a low note. Its great to know that there's more character development. I don't know what it is with this game but I love the characterization. It feels weirdly immersive.

Looking forward to those Kurt and Colossus interactions! Also, I sincerely doubt that I'd go platonic, I'd feel FOMO about missed content...
Although speaking of 18 girls, I would suggest a way to have multiple dates in a single day... Maybe more on the weekends, less on the weekdays? Or Group dates.

Ah... I can imagine it now, Null going broke. Nobody talks about the costs, logistics and accounting involved in a harem. It's gonna be fun is what I'm saying.

you like Kurt? Because as Shiny said, Nightbrowler is gonna continue to be a thing, but if you are saying you wanna get nasty with the blue elf then you might wanna sit on that one.

Pft. Nah, I meant Nightbrowler.
Honestly, the dude went to hell and back, the guy needs some more screen time and more dialogue beyond giving me tips and his... Not very useful information on the girls.

those would need to be a bonus/dlc thing

I'm kinda taking you literally again but man, I'm kinda hoping this game becomes moddable/modular now... Although I guess I'm picturing what is air-dropping girls into the game which I guess yeah, kinda dampens that idea. Girls are added organically into the game and I ain't complaining. Hell, I kinda like that Jean took a couple of days to actually finally be available, she's an X-Men, she's supposed to be busy doing X-Men-y stuff.

 

[Dazzier31]

Ah... I can imagine it now, Null going broke. Nobody talks about the costs, logistics and accounting involved in a harem. It's gonna be fun is what I'm saying.

I'm kinda taking you literally again but man, I'm kinda hoping this game becomes moddable/modular now... Although I guess I'm picturing what is air-dropping girls into the game which I guess yeah, kinda dampens that idea. Girls are added organically into the game and I ain't complaining. Hell, I kinda like that Jean took a couple of days to actually finally be available, she's an X-Men, she's supposed to be busy doing X-Men-y stuff.

That's why you let the girls invite you sometimes, it does wonders to your finances.

About modding, the intention is for the game to be very easy to mod, me personally don't see the point in modding girls because they would most likely end up looking like a player 2 recolor of an existant girl and yeah the whole "air dropping girls" but hey, if someone wants to I see no reason to stop them.

 

[ShinyBoots1993]

As much as I love RL:E, I hope to GOD that the devs for this game don't take inspiration for Emma from that game.

We've actually had several conversations about that and in my personal opinion I think the characterization of Emma and Storm got reversed.

I have no idea what Oni was reading that made him go "Emma definitely cares about student/teacher ethics."

I didn't even know there was a closed beta?

Closed alpha.

I have to say though... 6 Chapters feel short...

Chapters 2 through 5 are covering 30 years of comic books. Chapter 1 is purely world introduction.

Honestly, if Chapter 6 ending is 'open-ended' or at least provides a 'play forever' option, I'm probably gonna be happy.

Chapter 6 is post game. Stories that don't fit within the timeline and previews of potential sequels. It'll be a much purer sandbox.

So I'll also add there's 15 primary girls. We do plan on adding girls in retroactively because in certain chapters there are more than 3 characters that would make sense but we don't want to overwork ourselves.

I'd feel FOMO about missed content...

There will be content for exclusively dating one person.

Or specific combinations of people.

There will be content for a Null who doesn't date anyone until chapter 6.

Going 100% harem is only one route of many.

There's also quirks which effect routes. Each girl reacts noticeably differently throughout chapter 1's main story and side content depending on if you activate their quirk.

And speaking of FOMO of missed girl content... Every girl will have 4 distinct different feels.

1. Platonic

2. Romance

3. Platonic + Quirk

4. Romantic + Quirk

Which to my knowledge is already in the game for all three girls, with plans for expansion.

We're basically a completionist's wet dream with plans of expanding. You should see the things we have planned for the Achievement Shop.

Although speaking of 18 girls, I would suggest a way to have multiple dates in a single day... Maybe more on the weekends, less on the weekdays? Or Group dates.

Yeah we're working on this. You can extend your actions during time periods by getting your stamina up.

Ah... I can imagine it now, Null going broke. Nobody talks about the costs, logistics and accounting involved in a harem. It's gonna be fun is what I'm saying.

We actually joke and talk about this in the discord quite often. There's a channel devoted entirely to fanmade text conversations between characters and most often group texts.

I'm kinda hoping this game becomes moddable/modular now...

It's currently moddable. We're just waiting for chapter 1 to wrap up before we make a super big deal about it.

Although I guess I'm picturing what is air-dropping girls into the game which I guess yeah, kinda dampens that idea.

I believe if someone wants to mod in girls to be air dropped... that's doable. Someone already used Jean's assets to make her look a little like Emma. Take that and make an Emma mod.