VN Ren'Py The Swordbearer [v0.10] [Caramel Cowboy]

[Hildegardt]

About the carrying the sword around topic : idk man like I said in some other post here I really didn’t think that much about it because I knew I wasn’t going to introduce action scenes just yet but I guess I should’ve made him carry it around. This is a laid back mc that thought having a sword is ‘cool’ and I guess that was my justification of him not giving a shit. Up until now, no one is really expecting shit to go down but if you played ep5, you know that the mc now knows things are going to get real.

Now it can be a thing that shows his progression, if he finally starts picking up his sword, when shit goes down. Would have been a wasted opportunity, if he was already casually carrying it around.

Even during the renaissance at the height of fencing culture and guilds, nobody would carry a sword around all the time, if they didn't know how to use it. And the swords that got the most use were narrow edgeless trainers.
Daggers were much more common for self-defence, because swords are inconvenient in most casual settings. That's why the swords people would wear as part of their outfits became smaller and smaller with time, until we ended up with the smallsword (no pun intended).

 

[EricGrey]

About the carrying the sword around topic : idk man like I said in some other post here I really didn’t think that much about it because I knew I wasn’t going to introduce action scenes just yet but I guess I should’ve made him carry it around. This is a laid back mc that thought having a sword is ‘cool’ and I guess that was my justification of him not giving a shit. Up until now, no one is really expecting shit to go down but if you played ep5, you know that the mc now knows things are going to get real. I think I replied to most of the comments but if I missed something out, feel free to ping or dm me. I struggle browsing on my phone.

edit : your sword carrying points are valid. But if you think this breaks the illusion of medieval, just think of those bikinis that showed up in a previous episode

My thought about the sword is that he didn't carry it around because he didn't have a scabbard and belt for it (at least, I don't remember there being one).

So maybe the first thing to do is for him to get one...

Anyway, great work so far. Looking forward to continuing the story.

 

[Udayana]

About the carrying the sword around topic : idk man like I said in some other post here I really didn’t think that much about it because I knew I wasn’t going to introduce action scenes just yet but I guess I should’ve made him carry it around. This is a laid back mc that thought having a sword is ‘cool’ and I guess that was my justification of him not giving a shit. Up until now, no one is really expecting shit to go down but if you played ep5, you know that the mc now knows things are going to get real. I think I replied to most of the comments but if I missed something out, feel free to ping or dm me. I struggle browsing on my phone.

edit : your sword carrying points are valid. But if you think this breaks the illusion of medieval, just think of those bikinis that showed up in a previous episode

Romans knew bikinis, perhaps it wasn't forgotten in the Middle Ages

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[Neko-Chan Pacifica]

top story, pacing a little slow? fast? idk really depends on how long the dev wants the game to be. too many LI potentials and all beautiful damn. And cant wait for some action with lyra

It's not that there are too many LI's, there can never be enough of them, but, it's what will happen to them, how they are woven into the story, and whether they really add much value except for eye candy to the story, because if it's just the later to add a little extra something, which is nothing more than eye candy, I can totally agree with the sentiment of too many LI's.
It's about how much money can be stretched out of the patreon and or subscribe.star subscribers, and how long they are willing to wait, by which I simply mean, taking as long as possible, deliberately taking an age to get a story told, so that he/she can keep raking in money from the game. It's the way things are, and if subscribers are sick and tired of any dev taking an age, no matter how good a game it is, it's down to them to force the dev to speed up or he looses valuable subscribers.

 

[HogRocket]

I was an update behind, so I kind of did a skip/speed play through to catch the high points (don't have time to play correctly right now ). Still a great game. I'll go back and play through properly when I get the time. I've been going through the (too large) list of games on my computer and asking "am I still invested in this title?" and dumping them if I'm not. I am definitely still invested in this game!. The biggest problem is - every girl that pops up I fall for! I'm not feeling a "harem" vibe for this one so picking only one is going to be REALLY hard.

 

[CaramelCowboy]

It's not that there are too many LI's, there can never be enough of them, but, it's what will happen to them, how they are woven into the story, and whether they really add much value except for eye candy to the story, because if it's just the later to add a little extra something, which is nothing more than eye candy, I can totally agree with the sentiment of too many LI's.
It's about how much money can be stretched out of the patreon and or subscribe.star subscribers, and how long they are willing to wait, by which I simply mean, taking as long as possible, deliberately taking an age to get a story told, so that he/she can keep raking in money from the game. It's the way things are, and if subscribers are sick and tired of any dev taking an age, no matter how good a game it is, it's down to them to force the dev to speed up or he looses valuable subscribers.

Can’t speak for every other Dev out there but this vn will continue even if my patrons threaten to leave and I’m sure they know that too. I don’t say that with malice. I mean they know that I enjoy what I do. The people who stick around are there for a reason. If you were one of my patrons, you’d know how many times I’ve paused payments even while working because I don’t do it for the money. I’ve already been blessed with much more than I could’ve imagined so I have no reason to beat around the bush with the story.

Sometimes an episode is well received and sometimes it’s not. It’s just how it is. That doesn’t mean I’m going to change the pace of the story because I’m scared people will lose interest. This started as a random project by a casual VN enthusiast (me). I’m only still doing it because I enjoy it.

If that wasn’t targeted at me specifically, I apologize. I only responded because it’s in this thread.

 

[HornyyPussy]

Can’t speak for every other Dev out there but this vn will continue even if my patrons threaten to leave and I’m sure they know that too. I don’t say that with malice. I mean they know that I enjoy what I do. The people who stick around are there for a reason. If you were one of my patrons, you’d know how many times I’ve paused payments even while working because I don’t do it for the money. I’ve already been blessed with much more than I could’ve imagined so I have no reason to beat around the bush with the story.

Sometimes an episode is well received and sometimes it’s not. It’s just how it is. That doesn’t mean I’m going to change the pace of the story because I’m scared people will lose interest. This started as a random project by a casual VN enthusiast (me). I’m only still doing it because I enjoy it.

If that wasn’t targeted at me specifically, I apologize. I only responded because it’s in this thread.

Now that's a good disposition to have!

No wonder I like your VN

 

[Krytax123]

Can’t speak for every other Dev out there but this vn will continue even if my patrons threaten to leave and I’m sure they know that too. I don’t say that with malice. I mean they know that I enjoy what I do. The people who stick around are there for a reason. If you were one of my patrons, you’d know how many times I’ve paused payments even while working because I don’t do it for the money. I’ve already been blessed with much more than I could’ve imagined so I have no reason to beat around the bush with the story.

Sometimes an episode is well received and sometimes it’s not. It’s just how it is. That doesn’t mean I’m going to change the pace of the story because I’m scared people will lose interest. This started as a random project by a casual VN enthusiast (me). I’m only still doing it because I enjoy it.

If that wasn’t targeted at me specifically, I apologize. I only responded because it’s in this thread.

Your game is great and unique!

And nothing is more annoying than the whole "We explain devs how to make money on patreon or whatever"-guys which just want more content and getting it faster in the end and best case everything should be tailored for their kinks exactly and of course the quality has to stay the same or get better at the same time.

I feel like you need to be thick-skinned to be an avn-dev to be able to ingore or even be friendly towards all the crybabys.

I way prefer devs makeing art with their own creativity compared to dev's who are working and considering themselves as a company with release-shedules and everything lacking creativity because its made for the mainstream.

Your game has great humor, renders and LI's and the backstory so far is very interresting. The MC is dorky which is fun, theres enough time left for an more serious aproach if the situation is nessecary and he will probably mature a lot in the coming month considering were not even at the beginning of his training.

There are a lot of unique and fun npcs in the game which i really like, the king is great for example and my absolute favorite Ivar is just hilarious. i was laughing tears at the "ILLEGAL STREEFIGHTS?" render lol.

The relations between the people are great too and i love the huge respect everyone (including the king) has towards MC's mother, its kinda unusual for AVN's that the parents reached greatness which leaves seemingly very big footsteps for the MC to fill. The relevation that MC's mother trained Ivar and talking about her was kinda his only serious moment in the whole game so far. I like that his mother's trainee will become his mentor and passing her skills and knowlege towards the mc like that.

 

[Deleted member 1571716]

Now that's a good disposition to have!

No wonder I like your VN

But you like all the VNs. In fact, you've told me that you haven't met a VN you didn't like. You're a VN manwhore!

 

[HornyyPussy]

But you like all the VNs. In fact, you've told me that you haven't met a VN you didn't like. You're a VN manwhore!

Oh there are VN's I don't like but I stop playing them and then forget about them, I don't hang around their threads to complain

 

[Valdazz]

Ugh the mc barely got any screen time in this recent update, is that how it'll be from now on? other characters taking up the screen time? I might just wait till the game is near completion if that's the case, i'm only here for the MC and LIs

 

[Porthas]

About the carrying the sword around topic : idk man like I said in some other post here I really didn’t think that much about it because I knew I wasn’t going to introduce action scenes just yet but I guess I should’ve made him carry it around. This is a laid back mc that thought having a sword is ‘cool’ and I guess that was my justification of him not giving a shit. Up until now, no one is really expecting shit to go down but if you played ep5, you know that the mc now knows things are going to get real. I think I replied to most of the comments but if I missed something out, feel free to ping or dm me. I struggle browsing on my phone.

edit : your sword carrying points are valid. But if you think this breaks the illusion of medieval, just think of those bikinis that showed up in a previous episode

I always kinda figured you avoided them holding weapons and wearing packs because of the game engine limitations you're using. I'd prefer to see them carrying around that stuff, but yeah these VN's aren't usually ideal for realism.

Pretty good story so far, I'm usually a sucker for "the hero's journey" stuff.

 

[Porthas]

Oh there are VN's I don't like but I stop playing them and then forget about them, I don't hang around their threads to complain

Ok. So what?

You do realize that everything on the internet gets feedback, scores, etc. Look at Steam, GOG, Amazon, Rotten Tomatoes - to expect there to not be critique on nearly anything produced or sold online is... odd.

 

[slick97]

About the carrying the sword around topic : idk man like I said in some other post here I really didn’t think that much about it because I knew I wasn’t going to introduce action scenes just yet but I guess I should’ve made him carry it around. This is a laid back mc that thought having a sword is ‘cool’ and I guess that was my justification of him not giving a shit. Up until now, no one is really expecting shit to go down but if you played ep5, you know that the mc now knows things are going to get real. I think I replied to most of the comments but if I missed something out, feel free to ping or dm me. I struggle browsing on my phone.

edit : your sword carrying points are valid. But if you think this breaks the illusion of medieval, just think of those bikinis that showed up in a previous episode

I can somewhat understand the argument that the MC should be carrying around his sword more often given the namesake of the story. However I saw it as a stylistic approach on your part considering that you established the relaxed nature of him within the first chapter. It also follows the "Rebirth" plot type to a tee as he encounters an obstacle which forces him to change his personality in order to triumph (i.e. kill vampires).

Issues will start to arise though given the rather significant plot progression in chapter 5 if the MC continues to act nonchalant. Additionally, you've added a hard time limit for the MC to prepare for the coming conflict, so if progression is too slow on his part that will also cause issues stemming around obvious plot armor or writing tropes. However, I'm confident the time limit won't be a case considering Luneira has provided an excellent incentive to get our asses in gear.

Ugh the mc barely got any screen time in this recent update, is that how it'll be from now on? other characters taking up the screen time? I might just wait till the game is near completion if that's the case, i'm only here for the MC and LIs

Chapter 5 had the difficult task of progressing the plot towards the climax of act 1 alongside setting up elements for the next act. Additionally, we did see some significant relationship developments with one of the LIs, probably the most important one within the story (hint: Luneira). We also saw a bit of development in the relationship between Lyra and the MC with the increase in affection she's been showing.

It's not that there are too many LI's, there can never be enough of them, but, it's what will happen to them, how they are woven into the story, and whether they really add much value except for eye candy to the story, because if it's just the later to add a little extra something, which is nothing more than eye candy, I can totally agree with the sentiment of too many LI's.

This is a good argument in terms of number of LIs introduced into an VN. I've come across a few devs (not going to name and shame since their fans are a literal cult) that resort to adding new characters to the story in an effort to keep themselves interested in finishing the story. The issue with too many LIs is compounded further by most devs' desire to make their story choice driven rather than taking the kinetic/superficial approach. It leads to sloppy writing, poor character development, and nonsensical plot points that deviate from the already established status quo, so to say.

The main issue I forsee with CaramelCowboy in the future is the pre-establishment of the three (3) main LIs: Lyra, Talitha, and Luneira. These three each fill a specific archetype that round out the main cast of romance-able characters. My best guess is the other LIs that are introduced - or have brief screen time - are solely there as side romances that fill sub-archetypes or are intended to add flavor to the overall story.

It's too early to say for certain if my assessment is correct. I've been wrong before so it could easily be the case that we'll end up with 6+ LIs all vying for our attention.

 

[HornyyPussy]

Ok. So what?

You do realize that everything on the internet gets feedback, scores, etc. Look at Steam, GOG, Amazon, Rotten Tomatoes - to expect there to not be critique on nearly anything produced or sold online is... odd.

Ok?

 

[vneotpolemus]

Good game. It's a little rough around the edges in places, but you can see the effort put in and it's improving with each update. Some thoughts that I had for the dev:

Spoiler: Constructive criticism (hopefully)

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Despite those small issues, I enjoyed the Swordbearer lot, and I'll be keeping an eye on it. Keep up the great work!

 

[CaramelCowboy]

So...... some honest thoughts about the latest update.
Please bear in mind that following is just to provide some constructive criticism, and is by no means meant to offend or bash CaramelCowboy and this game in any way.

I played the update and I guess it was....... just okay?

I quite liked Amaris's scenes towards the end (update does a really good job of hyping him up as the villain and his motives), and scenes of Ivar & Vera, and Ivar, Vera as well as King Alaric which discusses things to come were good also.
To add, I am looking forward to the history between MC's mom as Swordbearer and the previous leader of the vampires which does sound interesting, and I do kinda like Luneira as a character.


Having said that, the best girl Nevaeha is missing for most of the update.
Okay, jokes (partially joking, since I actually see Nevaeha as the best girl lol) aside though, bigger issue I found with this update is that I think it went too overboard with the humor.

Until now, it was always MC, Aren, Lyra trio.
Aren was always typically the one who handled a lot of jokes/funny scenes, and more often than not, acted like a doofus, with MC and Lyra playing off that humor as being a bit more serious/reasonable ones of the trio compared to Aren.

However, in this update Aren isn't in it a lot, and a lot of scenes are our MC by himself interacting with other characters (like Ava, Leliana, Astrid).
With this, the update has MC spouting jokes at almost every turn acting cocky, and behaving like a doofus many times? Making him be like an Aren clone in terms of personality?

And it's not even the matter of MC being competent.

MC can and should make mistakes at this point (like his training with Astrid), it's only natural given he's a newbie in the Knights guild, but even so dialing the jokester/doofus factor up to 11 just felt......weird, and out of character, especially compared to how I remember he acted like in the story till now.
Felt like the game was somehow compensating for Aren's large absence of acting like an idiot by force-injecting tons of unnecessary humor into the MC which I really thought wasn't needed.

Actually it would have been better off without them, given I feel they make his characterization and tone of the game inconsistent.


So yeah.
Hope I was able to make my point across.

As said in advance, just providing some constructive feedback on the update.
I still like the game a lot and will continue to follow it to see how this journey goes.

thanks for the feedback! I hope it’s clear that I dont hate constructive criticism because I feel like I’m still and always learning. So it’s always nice to see what others think especially when it’s put across so well like this. I guess I’m too much of a weeb sometimes and just love throwing in silly humor even for badass characters because that’s what I loved in most anime - when you realize this goofy mf can take on an entire village. Granted, that shouldn’t be the way to write all the time, I definitely understand the humor needs to be balanced with the drama more now because the plot is out there.

As for me, I also found it kinda odd/weird, that Nevaeha just dumped the responsibility of training MC off to Astrid, like MC was a random courier package .
I mean, isn't she supposed to already be in the know from Ivar that MC is the next Swordbearer?
Given that she's been with Ivar and even was close surveilling MC trying to keep him safe, I would have thought she would have taken training MC a bit more seriously when Ivar asked her to.

And yes, her pride got a bit hurt by almost losing to her enemy in that previous update (saying "I got rusty in this time of time of peace") but I thought training MC as best as possible would take precedence over her own training, even if she wasn't aware of the 1 month limit that Alaric, Vera, Ivar found ou

So my intentions about Nevaeha making Astrid train mc are that Astrid is the only person from Nevaeha’s past who’s still with her so she’s one of the few people who know who she is (she has a story that will come up that you can be a part of) , which is why she trusts Astrid with such an important task. Remember that Ivar is the person to really bring out mcs strength while Nevaeha(now Astrid) is only tasked with making him somewhat decent before Ivar steps in so it’s very general training.

I also wanted to show Nevaeha training a lot because she’s a badass and it didn’t really show during her first fight. Which is why I wanted her to realize how far she’s fallen compared to what she was. I thought it wouldn’t make sense for her to almost lose to some infamous thug and then in the next fight, she’s slapping people left and right.
Hope my pov helped! As always, feel free to ask more if something isn’t clear.

.

I always kinda figured you avoided them holding weapons and wearing packs because of the game engine limitations you're using. I'd prefer to see them carrying around that stuff, but yeah these VN's aren't usually ideal for realism.

Pretty good story so far, I'm usually a sucker for "the hero's journey" stuff.

Yeah that too. I said this somewhere here that finding an accessory where the sword really fits was a pain since these assets are so limited. Kinda wish I knew how to 3d model. I had one I used in the beginning of the VN but the geometry needed to be edited a lot depending on the camera angle. It ended up taking more time than creating the scene (on my old laptop). Maybe I can revisit the same asset now that I have a faster machine. Also there are so many scenes where someone bends or angles themselves for example and the sword just looked weird sticking out of their hip - which made me rotate the belt to angle it correctly which then made the asset look horrible.

 

[CaramelCowboy]

Your game is great and unique!

And nothing is more annoying than the whole "We explain devs how to make money on patreon or whatever"-guys which just want more content and getting it faster in the end and best case everything should be tailored for their kinks exactly and of course the quality has to stay the same or get better at the same time.

I feel like you need to be thick-skinned to be an avn-dev to be able to ingore or even be friendly towards all the crybabys.

I way prefer devs makeing art with their own creativity compared to dev's who are working and considering themselves as a company with release-shedules and everything lacking creativity because its made for the mainstream.

Your game has great humor, renders and LI's and the backstory so far is very interresting. The MC is dorky which is fun, theres enough time left for an more serious aproach if the situation is nessecary and he will probably mature a lot in the coming month considering were not even at the beginning of his training.

There are a lot of unique and fun npcs in the game which i really like, the king is great for example and my absolute favorite Ivar is just hilarious. i was laughing tears at the "ILLEGAL STREEFIGHTS?" render lol.

The relations between the people are great too and i love the huge respect everyone (including the king) has towards MC's mother, its kinda unusual for AVN's that the parents reached greatness which leaves seemingly very big footsteps for the MC to fill. The relevation that MC's mother trained Ivar and talking about her was kinda his only serious moment in the whole game so far. I like that his mother's trainee will become his mentor and passing her skills and knowlege towards the mc like that.

Wanted to have a separate reply for this specifically because you read my mind about Ivar only being serious one time in the VN so far. Love that!

honestly, the more attention this VN gets (very very grateful), the more I realize I might not be able to continue with my dream of replying to each and every comment. Constructive criticism is always great when written well (like JJJ84s post) but with some posts it feels like I’m expected to please everyone which is why I always specify please don’t feel like you have to subscribe.
My skin is definitely getting thicker though so - character development.

thanks again for such a supportive comment.

 

[JJJ84]

thanks for the feedback! I hope it’s clear that I dont hate constructive criticism because I feel like I’m still and always learning. So it’s always nice to see what others think especially when it’s put across so well like this. I guess I’m too much of a weeb sometimes and just love throwing in silly humor even for badass characters because that’s what I loved in most anime - when you realize this goofy mf can take on an entire village. Granted, that shouldn’t be the way to write all the time, I definitely understand the humor needs to be balanced with the drama more now because the plot is out there.



So my intentions about Nevaeha making Astrid train mc are that Astrid is the only person from Nevaeha’s past who’s still with her so she’s one of the few people who know who she is (she has a story that will come up that you can be a part of) , which is why she trusts Astrid with such an important task. Remember that Ivar is the person to really bring out mcs strength while Nevaeha(now Astrid) is only tasked with making him somewhat decent before Ivar steps in so it’s very general training.

I also wanted to show Nevaeha training a lot because she’s a badass and it didn’t really show during her first fight. Which is why I wanted her to realize how far she’s fallen compared to what she was. I thought it wouldn’t make sense for her to almost lose to some infamous thug and then in the next fight, she’s slapping people left and right.
Hope my pov helped! As always, feel free to ask more if something isn’t clear.

No, thank you for replying to both comments!
Just to let you know, I still like parts of the update.

Such as that Amaris scene in the end, you did an excellent job of hyping him up as a main villain.

Something that I wanted to ask; will we be seeing some other pretty powerful vamps too besides Amaris?

In the humans side, we have (correct me if I'm wrong in any point):

- Alaric (who's a King now, but I'm guessing he was a great warrior back in the day and still has some skills)
- Ivar (trained by the former Swordbearer, who was MC's mom)
- Vera (skilled in archery, also likely to be one of the former company of King Alaric)
- 3 other special individuals (all former company of Alaric, whom only Vera kept in touch?)

Already there seems to be 6 veterans who are likely to be on Humans side.
Amaris is definitely peak in terms of vampire's power, but it does make me think "Does he have perhaps have loyal vampire captains who are not quite at his level, but still fairly close?"

Not gonna lie, might be pretty cool to see something like that.

So far we've only seen vamp foot soldiers, or lower ranked vamps, and when Amaris sees Alaric with other veterans, he does his evil smirk and responds by sending his captains to wreck havoc.


I love seeing characters being put through the wringer, struggling in the conflict, and powerful vamp Captains doing Amaris's bidding (so that he doesn't do everything himself) could be quite an interesting wrinkle, at least in my eyes.

 

[CaramelCowboy]

No, thank you for replying to both comments!
Just to let you know, I still like parts of the update.

Such as that Amaris scene in the end, you did an excellent job of hyping him up as a main villain.

Something that I wanted to ask; will we be seeing some other pretty powerful vamps too besides Amaris?

In the humans side, we have (correct me if I'm wrong in any point):

- Alaric (who's a King now, but I'm guessing he was a great warrior back in the day and still has some skills)
- Ivar (trained by the former Swordbearer, who was MC's mom)
- Vera (skilled in archery, also likely to be one of the former company of King Alaric)
- 3 other special individuals (all former company of Alaric, whom only Vera kept in touch?)

Already there seems to be 6 veterans who are likely to be on Humans side.
Amaris is definitely peak in terms of vampire's power, but it does make me think "Does he have perhaps have loyal vampire captains who are not quite at his level, but still fairly close?"

Not gonna lie, might be pretty cool to see something like that.

So far we've only seen vamp foot soldiers, or lower ranked vamps, and when Amaris sees Alaric with other veterans, he does his evil smirk and responds by sends his captains to wreck havoc.


I love seeing characters being put through the wringer, struggling in the conflict, and powerful vamp Captains doing Amaris's bidding (so that he doesn't do everything himself) could be quite an interesting wrinkle, at least in my eyes.

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