VN Ren'Py Onhold The Spice Pirate [Prologue: Remastered] [Tak Mycket]

[DevinHesi]

06/05/2024 - Break Dev-Log #3
So the first playtesting build is out, and I want to say a massive thank you to those who have played it and given me feedback. If you want to join the playtesting team, or you're on the playtesting team and you haven't had the chance to play it yet, then it's not too late to give feedback (and join the playtesting team if you haven't already).

Armed with this new feedback, I've improved the UI (see below). Also made quite a few quality of life improvements and a few bug fixes as well.

In regards to the story, I received rather positive feedback on the overall story. However, the whole intro plot can be improved. I don't think it's bad or anything, it's just not great, meaning I want to improve it. There are really 3 ways I can do this:
Expand the intro (which is currently ~5 minutes long) to add more depth to it
Simplify the intro to focus on one thing, as at the moment, the players are introduced to 3 different major plot points in rapid succession
Or do a mix of both

I'm still thinking my way through this, and haven't yet made my decision on which direction I should take. I don't want to make any rash decisions so I'm going to do some more thinking and carefully weigh the pros and cons of each approach.

Anyway - that's a wrap up and I'll keep everyone updated.
New Main Menu:



New Game Menu:

 

[DevinHesi]

12/05/2024 - Break Dev-Log #4
Firstly, happy mother's day to all the amazing mothers out there.

Secondly - for the past week I have been working on improving the version I released to playtesters just under a week ago, and I am finally ready to move on.
I've been doing a bunch of re-writing and playtesting myself. The UI now looks cleaner as well and the dialogue flows much better. I have also lowered the stakes of a few of the early choices and expanded a few scenes.

I am now going to start on developing the next part of the story...

 

[DevinHesi]

18/05/2024 - Break Dev-Log #5
Past 6 days I have been quite busy with other commitments, but that hasn't meant I didn't get any progress done. I actually made quite a few changes to the overall plot, and here it is:

• I planned for MC to have a wife who died before the plot starts... but I scrapped that whole concept. The reason for this is that it's very hard to make people care about prior lovers which causes a disconnect between the player and MC's thoughts (which I don't want). On top of this, the plot could function without the dead wife so she no longer is part of the plot. So I removed all that.
• Playtesters would know the first scene, the MC wakes up with Mary in his bed. This is no longer the case... you still see the scene, it's just not the first scene anymore. This is because Mary's whole personality in the first version was a woman who had fallen for MC. Of course, there's much more depth to her than that, but I failed to show that in the first version. Thus, the opening scene is shown from Mary's perspective and it gives the reader an insight into who Mary is.
• Changed a few plot points to make sense. In the first version, Zelene was actually unaware of the arrangement until the very last moment. Now she's aware of it at the start of the story, as this makes more sense plot wise and made the character interactions more realistic as well... Just meant I had to change quite a few dialogue lines.
• Before, I had all the choices as booleans (True or False). Now they have 3 different modes - 0, 1 and 2. Practically, 0 means the choice hasn't happened, 1 means False and 2 means True. This change is for the journal that I plan on implementing.

Apart from that, I've also been working on the next part of the story... Should hopefully get another version out for playtesters soon... I also have 16 days left of my break - and after that ends I'll be making progress much faster.

 

[DevinHesi]

20/05/2024 - Preview Render...

 

[Krytax123]

20/05/2024 - Preview Render...

View attachment 3654417

Is that the princess? If so damn, the model looks way better now!

 

[DevinHesi]

Is that the princess? If so damn, the model looks way better now!

From what you understand, that's right, she really is beautiful now.

 

[Krytax123]

From what you understand, that's right, she really is beautiful now.

I love it, it was one of the bigger problems for me .. such an important character having such a weird face now shes beautiful!

 

[TakMycket]

Is that the princess? If so damn, the model looks way better now!

I can confirm that this is Zelene, who was the Princess in the old version. I'm glad you like the new model

However, as part of the re-work, the plot is also changing, and Zelene will no longer be a princess, and instead she'll be a high-ranking noble (a Governor's daughter to be exact).

There will still be a Princess LI you can romance - it just won't be Zelene.

 

[Krytax123]

I can confirm that this is Zelene, who was the Princess in the old version. I'm glad you like the new model

However, as part of the re-work, the plot is also changing, and Zelene will no longer be a princess, and instead she'll be a high-ranking noble (a Governor's daughter to be exact).

There will still be a Princess LI you can romance - it just won't be Zelene.

Yeah i dont mind her title, it was more about her importance for the story/the mc and their relation. I enjoy LI's like that and would have gone for her despite thinking the former model was rather ugly (sorry).

So this is just a very welcome surprise for me!

 

[DevinHesi]

22/05/2024 - Break Dev-Log #6

I finally discovered the lint feature in Ren'Py, meaning I can now give everyone an accurate overview of the amount of progress I've done. So the current numbers are:
305 renders
6,157 words of dialogue (that's dialogue only, no code is included in that count).
10 choices
0 animations

Note: there are new choices, it's just I deleted a few of the old ones due to change in script which is why the amount of choices stayed at 10.

I also got a moment of inspiration and wrote the new overview (and all the planned tags) which I'll post below after this dev-log.

For Playtesters
In terms of the immediate future, there are still quite a bit I want to do before I release the next version for you guys, so expect a new version in around a week's time.

Upcoming Release
I plan to have around 50k words for my first release (so I'm 12% of the way there). For comparison, an average novel has anywhere between 70k-120k words. It's taken me around a month of development to get to this point... BUT, I have hardly been working on TSP as I'm still on break, so late July is probably when people can expect the new version of TSP (which will contain a lot of content).

New Overview
The old King of Adristan is on his deathbed and the Princess is set to soon ascend the throne. However, lacking a husband and powerful allies, most consider the Princess unfit to rule and a succession war is looming on the horizon...

One individual who’s interested in the throne just happens to be your former captain, who is also the enigmatic Spice Pirate. After completing a seemingly innocent job, you become The Spice Pirate’s right hand man once again, thrusting you into the middle of an elaborate power play for the throne...

The Spice Pirate is a plot-centric AVN set in the early 18th century with minor fantasy elements. It’s a non-harem, slow burn AVN with a heavy focus on the development of romantic relationships. It also offers a tonne of replayability, with both your relationships and the overall plot being heavily influenced by your choices.

Note: The following tags are taken from the list of future planned tags on F95.

General Tags:
3D-Daz, Visual Novel, Adventure, Branching Routes, Drama, Fantasy, Male Protagonist, Medieval, Multiple Endings, Mythology, Romance, Slow Burn

Featured Kinks Tags:
Cheating, Impregnation, Interracial, Marriage, Male Domination, Netori, Pregnancy, Protagonist-Centric, Protagonist-Dom, Teasing, Vaginal Sex, Wholesome

Other Kinks Tags (kinks that will only happen a few times):
Anal Sex, Defloration, Exhibitionism

Character Tags:
Dark Skinned, Freckles, Hair-Blonde, Hair-Dark, Hair-Red, Hair-White, Maid, Royalty, Small Tits, Tsundere, Virgin

Notes:
All sexual acts depicted in TSP will include the protagonist and one other female character. This means no threesomes, lesbian, netorare, swinging, group sex, multiple penetration or anything of that sort. There will also be no incest, rape, sexual harassment or anything of that sort, as all sex depicted in TSP will be entirely consensual.

If you have any other questions regarding the content of TSP, don't hesitate to ask...

Also forgot the preview image...