Ren'Py Three and One: The Cursed Mansion [v0.26 Public] [Man from icecream van]

[FollowBobb]

The game feels bad because it lacks agency.

I'm ok for a fairly linear story. I'm ok for a couple of scenes of "you don't own every girl you meet, so they will sleep with others", but I'm NOT ok with the NTR side being determined at times by a literal dice roll. Even if the roll was fixed, and we picked heads or tails for each flip, so without walk though or rollback it seemed "random" but you could choose to win/loose with a guide.

And don't even get me started on how the second a game uses generative "AI" it instantly disrespects players time in all other ways. The bar "mini-game" does nothing for the story, just ruins your ability to hold "ctrl" to skip content you've already seen when trying to explore the choices in a supposed to be branching story. As does the sheer amount of "walking simulator" clicks farmed by things like needing to shower then return to the bar, even though there are ZERO player choices to be made. Literally the shower could just be deleted from the clicks, its never optional.

I really like the "dome" setting, I really like the twisted magic and "you need to be thrifty to survive"... and yet it hasn't made good on ANY of that. You physically can't spend too much money, you basically never get a choice on earning money ect. We're not juggling characters time, we're not juggling girls corruption, we're not making any tradeoff. So it doesn't feel like the setting is a struggle, it feels like the girls "cheat" on us for zero reason, with ugly bastards they don't even like.

The game has 95% of what it needs to offer a couple of amazing "routes", and instead treats everybody to "NTR lite (tm)" because having the choices matter so little rules out BOTH emotional bonds AND more hardcore content that it even seems to do the full setup for, women you have a reason to hold a grudge combined with a magic sex drug? But no, its introduced and then just completely forgotten later.. NTR lite can't let you do anything drastic. But likewise girls with lowest possible corruption do dirtier things randomly than they would at highest corruption and under the influence? No matter what you choose, you kinda have a bad time, and the justification of "nobody cares about the MC unless he has leverage" doesn't excuse it, because he literally has options for leverage, and just don't deploy them, we don't even get to choose if we're a peeping tom most of the time, the game has just given up on player input and forces it. Its frustraiting because its SO CLOSE to nailing one of the best stories on here, and is left mediorce by cowarding out of the very few imporant choices, and having a full stats/inventory system it doesn't use... in favor of more time wasting walking in a linear story.

 

[man from icecream van]

The game feels bad because it lacks agency.

I'm ok for a fairly linear story. I'm ok for a couple of scenes of "you don't own every girl you meet, so they will sleep with others", but I'm NOT ok with the NTR side being determined at times by a literal dice roll. Even if the roll was fixed, and we picked heads or tails for each flip, so without walk though or rollback it seemed "random" but you could choose to win/loose with a guide.

And don't even get me started on how the second a game uses generative "AI" it instantly disrespects players time in all other ways. The bar "mini-game" does nothing for the story, just ruins your ability to hold "ctrl" to skip content you've already seen when trying to explore the choices in a supposed to be branching story. As does the sheer amount of "walking simulator" clicks farmed by things like needing to shower then return to the bar, even though there are ZERO player choices to be made.

I really like the "dome" setting, I really like the twisted magic and "you need to be thrifty to survive"... and yet it hasn't made good on ANY of that. You physically can't spend too much money, you basically never get a choice on earning money ect. We're not juggling characters time, we're not juggling girls corruption, we're not making any tradeoff. So it doesn't feel like the setting is a struggle, it feels like the girls "cheat" on us for zero reason, with ugly bastards they don't even like.

The game has 95% of what it needs to offer a couple of amazing "routes", and instead treats everybody to "NTR lite (tm)" because having the choices matter so little rules out BOTH emotional bonds AND more hardcore content that it even seems to do the full setup for, women you have a reason to hold a grudge combined with a magic sex drug? But no, its introduced and then just completely forgotten later.. NTR lite can't let you do anything drastic. But likewise girls with lowest possible corruption do dirtier things randomly than they would at highest corruption and under the influence? No matter what you choose, you kinda have a bad time, and the justification of "nobody cares about the MC unless he has leverage" doesn't excuse it, because he literally has options for leverage, and just don't deploy them, we don't even get to choose if we're a peeping tom most of the time, the game has just given up on player input and forces it. Its frustraiting because its SO CLOSE to nailing one of the best stories on here, and is left mediorce by cowarding out of the very few imporant choices, and having a full stats/inventory system it doesn't use... in favor of more time wasting walking in a linear story.

The advanced free-walking mode with adventure searching, a shop, inventory, and all that other stuff was postponed due to the need to develop the story to a certain point, so there’s something to properly tie random events and other activities into. I’ve put it on hold, but I haven’t forgotten about it.


Voyeurism will arrive together with the renaissance of free roaming. There will be a fair amount of voyeurism. But... everything comes at a price. Hopefully, when the MC is peeping, his self-esteem won't drop.


The crate mini-game was probably overkill... I got a ton of bad feedback for it and a bad mood along with it. Now I can't just leave it as it is, so I'll definitely rework those crates and add an option to skip the warehouse job. But... maybe there’ll be some kind of catch waiting there... who knows


The lack of choices and different combinations is a real problem - and yes, this game has a lot of problems. Problems with graphics, problems with animation, no sound, too much text, those fucking crates, the MC is a loser, Bianca, an overly young MILF, those fucking crates again (the ones on day two), left-hand traffic, and probably a few more things I’m forgetting. All of that criticism is justified. But (I actually checked this just now) - if you select the aicg tag on this site (let’s pretend it's a separate league) and sort everything by rating, Three and One ends up at rank 346.


It feels like you're asking a bit too much from a game that doesn't even make it into the top 300 of its own league.

 

[FollowBobb]

The advanced free-walking mode with adventure searching, a shop, inventory, and all that other stuff was postponed due to the need to develop the story to a certain point, so there’s something to properly tie random events and other activities into. I’ve put it on hold, but I haven’t forgotten about it.

It feels like you're asking a bit too much from a game that doesn't even make it into the top 300 of its own league.

See here is the funny thing... your once again talking about ADDING a bunch MORE mechanics that will cost almost exponentual dev time as you add them to increasing concurrent complexity and make a state machine so wide you can't test every branch before shipping an update, instead of payoff of what you have.

I get to choose a second drink for example.. but nobody ever drinks it. Its not stored, its not used, its completely forgotten despite already being IN the game. A make yet another pusher, an exucse for a scene with a table... but it has no impact on any path. There is a coffee machine related to an entire subplot that does.. nothing. We don't need a more walking, economics, or replacing old CG's, people only nit pick those to post rationalize how the game already made them FEEL, whats needed is to finish a thought, to be able to compromise reach goals the player (not character) has, and not to just get another 10 first introductions.

Its >300 rank not because of "production value", there are many cheaply made games in the top 10 (and expensive ones far below you). Nor a lack of content. Its ranking reflects soley the unwillingness to cut the half ideas to finish the best ones. Or to give players the CHOICE to commit to an idea (or not) that isn't seen to everybody on every play-through. And I feel the poll voting for future content ect drastically worsen that lack of internal direction.