VN Ren'Py Twisted Memories [v0.9b] [BaiBai]

[Alandir]

It is at least in poor taste to insert oneself and one's opinions into a direct reply from one person to another. I replied to a point made by someone else that I agreed with in general, not to you or your post. But you still felt the need to insert yourself. Are you that desperate to force others to agree with your opinions that you felt threatened by me agreeing with someone you disagreeed with??

I ignored your post because you stated your opinions about the game's development - as a player, of a game you are not the dev of - as facts, and that is often a red flag indicating posters unwilling/incapable of being respectful of any viewpoints that differ from their own.** And then you inserted yourself again with a second post, once again implying that anyone who disagrees with you must not have played the game (i.e., has no idea what they are talking about if they don't agree with you).

There is an old adage: better to keep one's mouth closed and be considered a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. Now Ignored officially rather than just in practice.

**I am absolutely guity of this myself on occasion, but I try my best not to make a habit of it.

It's a public forum. Sharing opinions and having discussions is kind of the point. Of course it's valid if you want to have a discussion with just one person, but I think that's what dms are for.
I am also pretty sure I only replied to you once, so I don't really know what you mean with "you inserted yourself again". Or do you take issue that I replied to other people on the same topic? I was just replying to the arguments you guys were making. I do know how I write can come off very combatative, but I do accept other opinions.

Anyway concerning BaiBai's post, I'll be fine with whatever he choose to do. If he continues and finds himself wanting to do solo routes, I'm sure they'll be good given his quality of writing and if he chooses to not do them and just focus on the harem route, I'll be fine with that as well.

 

[DatWanGai]

My 2 cents on how I currently think about solo endings:

When I first started the game I wanted to go about the harem and the solo endings a bit different than most games I myself played so far tend to do it. The MC was supposed to actively pursue a harem and then get get put to the test, the choice before him: Risk the second chance he got in hope to form his harem or take it with one girl he can be sure of that he can life a happy life with. Accordingly I've been trying to build up every girl to get into a position to fit for the later BEFORE giving the player the choice to reject her. I do like to think that I've been doing a decently good job at that but the more I've been doing this dev thing the more I've started to see other problems with my initial idea.

First: A story telling reason. Writing break ups for 5+ girls that feel appropriate to the build up of their relationships that came before seems increasingly challenging to me and this many break ups will probably get pretty old, pretty fast.

I could of course do it in narration only accompanied by a time skip but that again brings multiple problems in my mind: 1. It wouldn't be satisfying, 2. It would heavily disconnect the story lines forcing me to write 7+ paths at the same time, or 3. If I were to do it in a prologue kind of way where to choice for a girl is directly followed with her ending it would make the solo routes end way earlier than the harem route as I'm sure as hell not going to do a “harem is formed, game is ending” kind of harem ending.

Second: The amount of work it would require. When I planned the game at first I was very conscious about doing it in such a way that I could actually manage to finish it. Still, planning something like this without ever having done it and actually doing it are two entirely different pair of shoes. Neither is it helping that the effort that goes into the game went up drastically over the time of the development or that I was still studying and had a lot of free time when I started this project that I no longer have (The advice generally given to new devs to start with a small project has its merits but its hard to overcome ones own ambition).

Third: I always wanted this to be a tight-knit story with a lot of character each of which can stand on their own and only gets elevated by being forced to bounce off each other through this harem-building setting. But, the more I've been doing it this way the harder it seems to me to actually untangle all of this again to make satisfactory solo endings possible.

All in all the way I see it now and if I were able to start over it would probably have been better to either give the player the choice to pursue a girl right from the get to, or to go full force into the harem-building aspect of things making the choices not about who is part of the harem but instead the way it is build and the dynamics within. At least I think those would make for more clear cut paths that can still be interesting but such realizations come with experience especially if you try to be a snowflake in the market of harem avn's.

In the end its a miscalculation by me and even though I still like the idea of solo endings very much as I truly think every one of the main girls would be deserving of one, I would hate not to be able to bring the game to a satisfactory end even more. And having done this for a few years now (although I still feel like a new dev), knowing how much time this takes up and seeing how the story so far developed I'm simply getting increasingly worried that by making solo endings I will end up not being able to deliver either.

Best thing you can do imo is instead of making individual endings branching off of a story that has been heavily focused on harem building which as you said would be a hell of a lot of work. Is make unlockable "what-if" scenarios.

For instance, have the harem ending and then have an epilogue that appears where the MC wonders what would have happened if he aimed for certain girls alone. After that you can set up stuff like "What if I only went after Catherine (seduction)" "What if I only went after Vicky (Corruption)" and so on. This way you don't have to create break ups, just a little "how we hooked up" story in the non-Steph endings since every girl interacted with you while you were bf/gf. And you can even make it so that the MC still fixes their original future outcome even without ending up with them.

Still some work, but it'll be a lot less then a break-up scene for every single girl in every single solo route.

 

[xsikal]

My 2 cents on how I currently think about solo endings:

When I first started the game I wanted to go about the harem and the solo endings a bit different than most games I myself played so far tend to do it. The MC was supposed to actively pursue a harem and then get get put to the test, the choice before him: Risk the second chance he got in hope to form his harem or take it with one girl he can be sure of that he can life a happy life with. Accordingly I've been trying to build up every girl to get into a position to fit for the later BEFORE giving the player the choice to reject her. I do like to think that I've been doing a decently good job at that but the more I've been doing this dev thing the more I've started to see other problems with my initial idea.

First: A story telling reason. Writing break ups for 5+ girls that feel appropriate to the build up of their relationships that came before seems increasingly challenging to me and this many break ups will probably get pretty old, pretty fast.

I could of course do it in narration only accompanied by a time skip but that again brings multiple problems in my mind: 1. It wouldn't be satisfying, 2. It would heavily disconnect the story lines forcing me to write 7+ paths at the same time, or 3. If I were to do it in a prologue kind of way where to choice for a girl is directly followed with her ending it would make the solo routes end way earlier than the harem route as I'm sure as hell not going to do a “harem is formed, game is ending” kind of harem ending.

Second: The amount of work it would require. When I planned the game at first I was very conscious about doing it in such a way that I could actually manage to finish it. Still, planning something like this without ever having done it and actually doing it are two entirely different pair of shoes. Neither is it helping that the effort that goes into the game went up drastically over the time of the development or that I was still studying and had a lot of free time when I started this project that I no longer have (The advice generally given to new devs to start with a small project has its merits but its hard to overcome ones own ambition).

Third: I always wanted this to be a tight-knit story with a lot of character each of which can stand on their own and only gets elevated by being forced to bounce off each other through this harem-building setting. But, the more I've been doing it this way the harder it seems to me to actually untangle all of this again to make satisfactory solo endings possible.

All in all the way I see it now and if I were able to start over it would probably have been better to either give the player the choice to pursue a girl right from the get to, or to go full force into the harem-building aspect of things making the choices not about who is part of the harem but instead the way it is build and the dynamics within. At least I think those would make for more clear cut paths that can still be interesting but such realizations come with experience especially if you try to be a snowflake in the market of harem avn's.

In the end its a miscalculation by me and even though I still like the idea of solo endings very much as I truly think every one of the main girls would be deserving of one, I would hate not to be able to bring the game to a satisfactory end even more. And having done this for a few years now (although I still feel like a new dev), knowing how much time this takes up and seeing how the story so far developed I'm simply getting increasingly worried that by making solo endings I will end up not being able to deliver either.

Makes sense to me. Focus on your main path to completion (which appears to be the harem ending(s)), and then when you've got that done, you can decide if you have the time/inclination to pursue other paths. It's your game and your vision. Despite the flurry of posts from a few people over the last days, I do think most players have been focused on the harem just as much as the MC has been.

 

[Kawai Shrek Bomberman]

Guys, just to be clear, I only commented to say what I supposedly thought about the topic that was being discussed, I myself prefer harem, I'm not affirming or demanding anything. I don't read minds and I'm not the game developer to know anything, we're just debating our opinions. Gud day...

 

[DatWanGai]

Makes sense to me. Focus on your main path to completion (which appears to be the harem ending(s)), and then when you've got that done, you can decide if you have the time/inclination to pursue other paths. It's your game and your vision. Despite the flurry of posts from a few people over the last days, I do think most players have been focused on the harem just as much as the MC has been.

This pretty much. I'm all for solo endings or even some duo endings with the side girls that are connected to the main girls like Alyvia/Mya, Emily/Lola, Vicky/Juila, Jacky/Clements, somehow get Stephine or Catherine to meet Abigail.

ANYWHO, I'm mostly all for the harem route first and foremost but I also love individual endings in harem games, but this one as it is would require a lot of work in the later phases or rewrite the earlier phases to make sense of solo endings in a satisfying way.

off-topic but I'm still waiting for someone to change Bunny Garden into a H game.

 

[Master of Puppets]

My 2 cents on how I currently think about solo endings:

When I first started the game I wanted to go about the harem and the solo endings a bit different than most games I myself played so far tend to do it. The MC was supposed to actively pursue a harem and then get get put to the test, the choice before him: Risk the second chance he got in hope to form his harem or take it with one girl he can be sure of that he can life a happy life with. Accordingly I've been trying to build up every girl to get into a position to fit for the later BEFORE giving the player the choice to reject her. I do like to think that I've been doing a decently good job at that but the more I've been doing this dev thing the more I've started to see other problems with my initial idea.

First: A story telling reason. Writing break ups for 5+ girls that feel appropriate to the build up of their relationships that came before seems increasingly challenging to me and this many break ups will probably get pretty old, pretty fast.

I could of course do it in narration only accompanied by a time skip but that again brings multiple problems in my mind: 1. It wouldn't be satisfying, 2. It would heavily disconnect the story lines forcing me to write 7+ paths at the same time, or 3. If I were to do it in a prologue kind of way where to choice for a girl is directly followed with her ending it would make the solo routes end way earlier than the harem route as I'm sure as hell not going to do a “harem is formed, game is ending” kind of harem ending.

Second: The amount of work it would require. When I planned the game at first I was very conscious about doing it in such a way that I could actually manage to finish it. Still, planning something like this without ever having done it and actually doing it are two entirely different pair of shoes. Neither is it helping that the effort that goes into the game went up drastically over the time of the development or that I was still studying and had a lot of free time when I started this project that I no longer have (The advice generally given to new devs to start with a small project has its merits but its hard to overcome ones own ambition).

Third: I always wanted this to be a tight-knit story with a lot of character each of which can stand on their own and only gets elevated by being forced to bounce off each other through this harem-building setting. But, the more I've been doing it this way the harder it seems to me to actually untangle all of this again to make satisfactory solo endings possible.

All in all the way I see it now and if I were able to start over it would probably have been better to either give the player the choice to pursue a girl right from the get to, or to go full force into the harem-building aspect of things making the choices not about who is part of the harem but instead the way it is build and the dynamics within. At least I think those would make for more clear cut paths that can still be interesting but such realizations come with experience especially if you try to be a snowflake in the market of harem avn's.

In the end its a miscalculation by me and even though I still like the idea of solo endings very much as I truly think every one of the main girls would be deserving of one, I would hate not to be able to bring the game to a satisfactory end even more. And having done this for a few years now (although I still feel like a new dev), knowing how much time this takes up and seeing how the story so far developed I'm simply getting increasingly worried that by making solo endings I will end up not being able to deliver either.

Probably just as well, I doubt I'd bother with the solo endings myself and I imagine that I'm far from alone. If they were going to be done, it would be better to have never got together with the girls in the first place rather than breaking up with them.
I do think that the "what if" way of doing it that was mentioned would be something interesting to think of, those would probably be significantly shorter stories than the main one, so could be played without having to play through the main game multiple times.

 

[DougsLeftNut]

Probably just as well, I doubt I'd bother with the solo endings myself and I imagine that I'm far from alone. If they were going to be done, it would be better to have never got together with the girls in the first place rather than breaking up with them.
I do think that the "what if" way of doing it that was mentioned would be something interesting to think of, those would probably be significantly shorter stories than the main one, so could be played without having to play through the main game multiple times.

Whether I would bother with them after the fact as a player who is currently focused on the harem aspect is 100% reliant on whether they have exclusive scenes. Doing different endings for different solo or group relationships may be secondary, but they've absolutely added replayability for me when there's new content involved for a game I enjoy like this one. .

 

[Pillepalle]

Seen too many good games go to shit due to heavy branching. It takes a ton of extra work slowing down the development, players and dev alike are more likely to get bored/burned out of the game and ultimately abandoned.

IMO it's way better to focus on one well fleshed out story and stay true to what made the game gather a following in the first place and that ain't solo paths. Having a romance/corruption route is already enough and I imagine adds a ton of extra work since the scenes are actually quite different. 'What if scenarios' can work, but honestly i'd rather have an update for the main plot game basically every time.

 

[Cherubin25]

Seen too many good games go to shit due to heavy branching. It takes a ton of extra work slowing down the development, players and dev alike are more likely to get bored/burned out of the game and ultimately abandoned.

IMO it's way better to focus on one well fleshed out story and stay true to what made the game gather a following in the first place and that ain't solo paths. Having a romance/corruption route is already enough and I imagine adds a ton of extra work since the scenes are actually quite different. 'What if scenarios' can work, but honestly i'd rather have an update for the main plot game basically every time.

In theory there is even more work to do with just the Seduction and Corruption Route. I dont know how much BaiBai wants to work on this, but given that he clearly puts effort and thoughts into his work, it might be even more work to create scenes just with the two present routes.
Because if you want to cover all scenarios, you would need a lot of scenes when it comes to threesomes for example. Since you might not have two LIs on the same route during a threesome. E.g. if there is a threesome between MC, Stephanie and Viki, you could have both on Corruption Route, both on Seduction route or Stephanie on Corruption, but Viktoria on Seduction and vice-versa.
And this does not even include Side-LIs.

IMO going for Harem-Endings is the way to go here. And even with 4 Harem Endings which were planned for a time it should be more than enough. Solo-Endings would probably not even add replayability if done the "easy" way by having everything happening and then MC breaking up with the LIs. Because you would need to play through everything again or just make a save right before the Ending, which means you would not replay anything.
(And on a personal note I really do not like that. There was a different game here which featured different endings, but everything before the Ending was the same, even if you did the choices for the Ending during the Playthrough. So even if you wanted to end up with a specific character in the ending, you had to do all the stuff with other characters... Wasnt great for me)

 

[Joey's Conscience]

Personally, I think the cost for having solo routes greatly outweights the rewards. The story craws to a halt as devopment gets far more complex, and it's not like the added replayability is a straight positive for everyone either. I much prefer playing several games than playing a single game over and over. Having multiple routes is more likely to tune me out than draw me in. In fact, I already wasnt a fan of having a scene from Vik's mom thas wasnt tied to corruption/seduction.

 

[Gilber_bestram@176]

Let's forget about solo route. He almost stop his development. Just keep focus on harem route. But like people said above, how will the group scene play out with seduction and corruption variation

 

[DatWanGai]

In theory there is even more work to do with just the Seduction and Corruption Route. I dont know how much BaiBai wants to work on this, but given that he clearly puts effort and thoughts into his work, it might be even more work to create scenes just with the two present routes.
Because if you want to cover all scenarios, you would need a lot of scenes when it comes to threesomes for example. Since you might not have two LIs on the same route during a threesome. E.g. if there is a threesome between MC, Stephanie and Viki, you could have both on Corruption Route, both on Seduction route or Stephanie on Corruption, but Viktoria on Seduction and vice-versa.
And this does not even include Side-LIs.

IMO going for Harem-Endings is the way to go here. And even with 4 Harem Endings which were planned for a time it should be more than enough. Solo-Endings would probably not even add replayability if done the "easy" way by having everything happening and then MC breaking up with the LIs. Because you would need to play through everything again or just make a save right before the Ending, which means you would not replay anything.
(And on a personal note I really do not like that. There was a different game here which featured different endings, but everything before the Ending was the same, even if you did the choices for the Ending during the Playthrough. So even if you wanted to end up with a specific character in the ending, you had to do all the stuff with other characters... Wasnt great for me)

Excellent point.
The best way to deal with that is to have the main girls only interact with secondary girls until you're getting close to the finale. That way, at most all you need is 2 different scenes depending on if the main girl involved is mostly corruption or seduction. Hell it doesn't even have to be a totally difference scene, just minor differences like forced creampie if corrupt and choice of creampie or not if seduce.

As for the endings, I'll personally say 3 harem endings is enough. A all corruption ending, a all seduction ending and a mixed ending.
Solo endings, as I was saying earlier, can be regulated into extra "what-ifs" that only unlocks after you get a specific ending. For instance, getting the "Corruption Harem ending" unlock 6 solo what-ifs for the main heroines keeping to corruption. Since they are what-ifs, you don't have to be bound to actual events that took place in the story. You can even do the same for the side girls, and since it's unlocked after an ending...you don't have to worry about it slowing down development.

 

[dolfe67]

My favorite what-if scenario is "what if the dev finishes the game someday with at least one ending and doesn't abandon it along the years it'll take to do it"