VN Ren'Py Unexpected Consequences [Development Thread]

[MasterOrionDC]

Welcome to the development thread for my visual novel Unexpected Consequences.

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I started working on what would eventually be called Unexpected Consequences a little under two years ago, although it was quite a different game at that time. Initially called Love & Lust in Lakeview, it has evolved substantially since my initial outline turning into a much better story that my original idea ever could have. Now, let’s start with a brief introduction to Unexpected Consequences.

Unexpected Consequences is set in the year 2032 in the fictional city of Oceanside, Washington, USA. You take on the roll of Rick Jackson (you are given the option to customize your name), a 19 year old sophomore at Oceanside University. Three years ago, your childhood friend Kathryn Stuart was severely injured in a terrible accident and her parents decided to move to get her the best medical care possible, but her older sister Jamie moved in with your family to finish high school. Tragically, about a month later, your parents died in car accident. They had named their friend, Elizabeth Greene, as your guardian and she moved in with you and Jamie until you turned 18.

The story begins just before the start of your sophomore year of college. Jamie has just moved out to live with her fiancé and two new roommates are about to arrive at your door, Alice Rose and Mia Davis. The arrival of Alice and Mia in your life will set in motion events that finally reveal the truth of everything that happened three years ago and set you on a collision course with the shadowy Syndicate behind it all.

Meet and join forces with your parents’ former FBI colleagues and eventually assist a global task force that also includes members from the OPD, CIA, and MI-6 to uncover shocking truths and fight to protect those closest to you and eliminate the threat of the Syndicate.

The current demo build contains the first three days of content and can be dowloaded from the links below.

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The current Patreon/SubscribeStar version is 0.4 which takes the story through the end of day 7. I am currently working on the first beta release of 0.5. Version 0.5 will add in day 8, which includes some major revelations and story developments. Version 0.5 will also see the 4K release of the game and more.

 

[MasterOrionDC]

Alice Rose

Alice is the first of your new roommates that you will meet. She is a 19 year old sophomore who just transferred to OU from Spring City Community College. She had a hard childhood, being bullied as a child and losing her mother to a drunk driver at 11, after which her father sunk into a drunken depression. Despite her difficult childhood, Alice is still a very happy and friendly person.

Like most of the characters, Alice has changed since my original design. Below is an early development image of her, Mia, and Rick.

I already had Mia’s design locked in at this point (although she doesn't yet have her piercings or rings in this image), but I ended up starting from scratch on Rick, and I made Alice taller and dropped her breasts down to a D cup. The below images help to illustrate her final design.

 

[MasterOrionDC]

Mia Davis

Mia is the second of your new roommates that you will meet and is also a 19 year old sophomore at OU. Mia loves music and plays bass in a band with her friends. She grew up in an extremely strict religious household and hasn’t spoken to her parents since she left for college. She’s creative, outgoing, and fearless.

Out of the original batch of characters I designed, Mia has changed the least. You can see an early version of Mia below.

I updated her hairstyle and added her piercings and rings, but otherwise she has physically stayed the same.

 

[MissFortune]

Oceanside,

Why Oceanside? So many places named that. Also not really very Washington-y, either. States in Washington seem to trend toward names. Kent, Everett, Arlington, Lacey, etc. There's also many ____ Lake; Bonney Lake, Cottage Lake, Martha Lake, Moses Lake, Lake Stevens, Lakewood, etc. In the early drafts of my own VN, I originally had my MC going to a fictional music city that resembled Seattle (but decided on New York, ultimately.). Couple names that I had floating were stuff like Law Creek (or Silo Creek), North Point/Point North (was kind of a nod to a band), Lake Elk, and stuff of that nature. Kind of pompous sounding, but also kind of grungy at the same time.

As for everything else, I gave your demo a surface-level skim (meaning renders, etc.), there's a couple things that stick out right away. This is entirely constructive feedback (I hope), and am willing to help out with anything you might find confusing need help with, especially in regard to what I point out here:

Renders are definitely solid. I think one thing that immediately sticks out to me, though, is the lack of Depth of Field. Depth of Field (henceforth referred to as DoF in this post) is nice to have as it creates a focus on the characters/figures/object you to be the key point of your render. For example, the first render in the OP is a good example:



DoF would've helped a lot here. While the grass looks decent, it's brightness in points is taking away from the focal point itself. Using DoF to soften it would've helped a lot here. Another thing DoF does quite well is hiding issues within textures. Take the road/street behind the models. It's quite pixelated, which DoF could've masked quite well. Same goes for the wall texture(s). Much too much bump happening here. Not quite sure if it was the asset or not, but again, DoF would've hid that. Deep in the background, across the road, there's a bright spot that pulls the eyes away from the models needlessly. In short, it's something that can change the entire feeling of a render, and if done right, make it look a bit more refined. For example:

No DoF:


DoF:


There's a smaller issue throughout many of the renders I noticed within the lighting. I'd look into adjusting your SSS/Translucency settings. If you look at a number of the renders, you'll notice that a lot of models will either have red noses, ears, or fingertips. This, to Iray, sort of like putting a flashlight against your fingers. But since some vendors fail to follow basic laws of skin/anatomy/etc. you end with that look despite subtle lighting, or not nearby lighting at all. Transmitted Measurement Distance in the surface settings of a figure can often fix this, but it really depends on the vendor more times than not. Sometimes it's fixable, but other times you either bite the bullet or use a different skin (I try to avoid certain skins/vendors for this exact reason. iSourceTextures, namely.). Beyond that, there's some small stuff like clipping (fingernails/fingertips going into clothing or own limb, etc.) and that's something that can be easily fixed by just giving your render a once-over before hitting render.

All that being said, there's a lot of good points here, as well. Your English seems quite fluent, and I do really like the subtlety of the expressions used in the actual game renders (for the most part, at least.). Might also add that you try to fact check everything you can about PDs, the various LEAs involved, etc. It's a deep, deep rabbit hole with not a lot of clear information out there. Alternatively, if you're willing to do a little world building, you could get away with making your own government LEA so that people can't poke holes through it. Good luck!

 

[MasterOrionDC]

Thanks for the feedback. The Oceanside name originated as a simple change from the original alliterative Lakeview when I changed the location from a lake side city to one on the ocean and was also starting to shift the story to one where I didn't think using an alliterative title fit anymore, it might be a bit late to change it now, but I'll at least consider it.

On the DoF front, I should be using it a lot more than I have. I have recently started a project of re-rendering my older renders during otherwise idle time for my workstation, so I should probably spend a few extra minutes on setting up the new renders to add in DoF. I'l also take a look at some of the other issues while I'm at it. I've already found a few clipping issues that I have corrected.

 

[MasterOrionDC]

Jamie Stuart

Jamie is your former roommate and also your childhood friend. She is a 21 year old senior at OU and recently moved in with her fiancé, Brad Tucker. Jamie’s parents and yours were very close friends and she was like a big sister to you growing up while her younger sister Kathryn was like your little sister. She’s very protective of those close to her, but has a bit of a blind spot in protecting herself.

The original version of Jamie wasn’t much different physically than the final version.

For the final model, I just made some minor shaping morph changes and changed her hairstyle and color. The biggest changes for Jamie were her actual characterization, as the original version wasn’t a lifelong friend, but someone you had only met when she became your roommate in college. Kathryn wasn’t originally her sister either, but making that change is what really helped me to lock in on the overarching story. I’ll talk about how those changes came about in more detail when I talk about Kathryn.

 

[MasterOrionDC]

Kathryn Stuart

Kathryn is an 18 year old freshman at OU, having just came back to Oceanside after moving away with her parents three years ago for her medical care after she lost her leg in an accident. You were very close to Kat before her accident, but you stupidly blamed yourself and haven’t talked to her since. Now that she is back in Oceanside, it’s time for you to make up for the past and also find answers as to the cause of both her accident, and the death of your parents.



The only things I’ve changed about Kat’s character model is the hair and tweaking the shaders on the black parts of her prosthetic, but she really turned out to be the key to fully developing the story of Unexpected Consequences. Initially, my idea behind Kat was for her to be someone new you would meet and to keep her prosthetic leg hidden when you first meet her, but after I designed her, I realized I used the same base character model for her that I had for Jamie. I really liked both characters, so I made some slight tweaks to Jamie and made them sisters. At this point Jamie was still just your former roommate, so I was still going to keep Kat’s prosthetic secret at first. However, I was also starting to move away from the more generic dating sim storyline of Love & Lust into the more detailed crime thriller of Unexpected Consequences.

As I was developing the idea of a nefarious organization being behind the accident that took your parents’ lives, I realized making Jamie into a childhood friend, someone who helped you through that loss, provided more meaning than having her as just your roommate. Once Jamie was your childhood friend, you had to know Kat as well and the prosthetic being a secret at first no longer made sense, but it finally cracked the story. What if the same organization that killed your parents caused the accident that cost Kat her leg? Once I had that piece of the puzzle figured out, the rest of the backstory fell into place and I quickly had the full chapter one story written.

 

[MasterOrionDC]

The final release of version 0.4 is now available on Patreon and SubscribeStar and I have started work on 0.5. Part of 0.5 is updating the locations. Inspired by a combination of MissFortune's comments and my own writing on both this story and a couple others I plan to include in a bit of a shared universe (nothing major, just little references and easter eggs here and there, one of which already exists in the latest version of Unexpected Consequences), I have updated location names in 0.5, starting with Oceanside, WA becoming Ocean City, OR. I'm also using a mix of completely fictional locations and locations based on real world ones, for example, the Stuart's move to San Francisco for Kat's treatment instead of Grand City. Version 0.5 will also see the upgrade to 4K and day 8 content, bringing in major revelations and story developments, it's going to be a big update.

 

[BaasB]

i will check later

 

[Manuya]

hello,
is this the same AVN as the one i just purchased from my wishlist right!? i searched 'Unexpected Consequences f95' on google and the only thing it leads to is here