Ren'Py Completed Valdana: The Fall [v2.00] [Tjord]

[kzk0987]

Why is that unfair? Is there some kind of law against comparing routes in the same game?
And even if it is shorter, you're allowed to critisize the allocation of resources of the shorter path. I'd honestly like to see a comparison of text to the original route and then see how much of the 'shorter' route is superfluous space-battle statistics that frankly don't matter.



My D&D character totally has a deep backstory, he's the prince of a nation and has parents that he lost and he's trying to buy an orphanage for... Oh when does that show up in the game? Oh it doesn't really, he takes pills to supress anything interesting happening to him.
do we see him taking these pills or struggling with this repression then?
No not really, this all happens off screen and we don't really see any of that.
So he just...doesn't engage with his background?
Nope, but he REALLY wants to and sort of does when forced to by the story.
Cool, cool, so basically you have no backstory?

If it doesn't show up in the game or the story you have no backstory. If the character doesn't want to engage in sex and is shown actively avoiding it unless it's imperative to the success of the mission but never realyl examining it beyond mild curiosity, there is no or barely any sexuality. Dumbledore isn't gay unless it's in the text or can be deduced from the text, no matter what J.K. Rowling says in tweets.



Why is that important? Are we meeting some sort of quota here? It's good that the protagonist in my erotic story isn't interested in sex! That's a positive thing? I bet Agatha Christie sort of went "my last murder-mystery has a detective that WANTED to solve the case and was interested in uncovering it all, but how about we now do a detective that isn't really interested in mysteries or puzzles, I bet my audience will love that!". It's fun as a novelty, but I wouldn't say it's good or even necesarry. Maybe next route we can put in Mr. Bean or Paddington as protagonists, we haven't had those yet! What wonders will occur when they're forced to engage in sexual hijinks!
Variety for the sake of variety isn't inherently good, necesarry or important. Also: why the fuck was there even a need for a different protagonist? Why was that important?



You're also sort of glossing over that this is the explicit direction the author chose to take this story, it's easy to justify the transformations NEEDING to be this way because of the direction of the story, but the direction of the story could have necesitated something else entirely.



This we agree on.

How about we calm the fuck down a little.

Also, I agree we could have gotten something completely different, I was just judging it on the basis of what we got.
And I do not dislike what we got.

I think there should be a harem ending

Now this is a sentiment I do share. I've been wishing for a harem ending since the original game. Feels like one of the endings where Fritz takes over Valdana should have a harem scene somewhere.
The bonus scene with Victorica and Yuria does mitigate that need somewhat because oyakodon is the second best thing.

 

[estrada777]

There's a bug,

NameError: name 'gallerion' is not defined

Need to default this variable to something because you've got an if gallerion with no else.

 

[Tjord]

There's a bug,

NameError: name 'gallerion' is not defined

Need to default this variable to something because you've got an if gallerion with no else.

May I ask which scene causes this bug for you (and wherever it's in game itself or opened from gallery menu)?

 

[estrada777]

May I ask which scene causes this bug for you (and wherever it's in game itself or opened from gallery menu)?

Shoot, I deleted the log already. In any situation where you have an if gallerion and you might not have hit a gallerion = True statment. Just add default gallerion = False in script.rpy and it'll be fine.

It was not in the gallery. I feel like it was an Audrey scene very early.

 

[Tjord]

Shoot, I deleted the log already. In any situation where you have an if gallerion and you might not have hit a gallerion = True statment. Just add default gallerion = False in script.rpy and it'll be fine.

I know. I am asking because this variable is checked every H-scene - and it's defined at the very start of the game.

 

[estrada777]

I know. I am asking because this variable is checked every H-scene - and it's defined at the very start of the game.

I went back and tried to reproduce and I couldn't. I'm wondering if my save file from 1.0 didn't have the variable. Was this an addition to 2.0 maybe?

 

[Addictions]

How about we calm the fuck down a little.

Also, I agree we could have gotten something completely different, I was just judging it on the basis of what we got.
And I do not dislike what we got

Right, instead of engaging with anything, your only reply is "calm down" as if me trying to make my response somewhat entertaining to read implies that I'm not calm. I know this isn't academia, but if you post things you're going to get engaged with.

I mostly took your post as basis because it was the most recent. Don't feel like the burden of response is entirely on you, or that you need to respond. I have no intention of insulting you or making you feel bad. If I did do those things unintentionally, I apologise.
I'm happy to hear your rebuttals if you have any. I was only engaging with your arguments, which to me were exceptionally shaky.

I know you're just trying to absolve yourself of thinking on this any further by implying I'm mad or upset and therefore not worth engaging with. (Very 1950's, say a woman's 'hysterical' and 'win' the conversation)
But I'm open to hearing your opinion on why you think the things you say are important are important, besides you saying they are.

 

[Tjord]

I went back and tried to reproduce and I couldn't. I'm wondering if my save file from 1.0 didn't have the variable. Was this an addition to 2.0 maybe?

Yes, that variable came with 2.0 update and the gallery. I guess I should've put on the warning somehwere, huh.

 

[test011]

Fully finished the game, I have to say I love the whole late game Audrey late game part, its just great to see her

Spoiler

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My only gripe with the story is that ending feels little bit anti climactic, i mean it makes perfect sense from the story perspective but our "heroes" parting ways and each being assigned to different tasks doesn't "feel" like a victory for our new protagonist.
If i had to make a new ending i would definitely love to see Valdana becoming a special inquisition zone with our new protag being in charge and doing some planetwide shenanigans like employing planetwide brainwashing tech or researching the ultrawaves. Would be a nice treat for globalization fans. But on the other hand it might be a little bit too "good".

 

[test011]

But I'm open to hearing your opinion on why you think the things you say are important are important, besides you saying they are.

Your problem seems to mostly just boil down to the fact that you don't like this particular version of the fetish, that's completely ok but what you listed as downsides are upsides for some.
For example complaining about constant percentages and protags telling the odds, it has a purpose, because its very easy way of showing us the players that the protags are now inhuman, robotic and have changed way of thinking.

Secondly: lack of sex, again, for some people the scenario is the hot part, for example one of my favorite erotic fiction writers, going by the pseudonym "Tabico" used to write mostly horror or thriller like stories where sex was maybe 10% or 20% of the story, the rest was devoted to building suspense and the context. And for me that was hot. If you want pure nukige then play nukige, play any other game on this side that focuses on pure sex or just watch a porn video.

Third of all, all the murders, its again meant to convey inhuman nature of protag, that was the whole point. Its an adult medium, why cant we have adult topics like warcrimes depicted?

Personally I see Tjord games as stories primarily, and erotica secondly. If you play his earlier games you will see that the sex to story ratio is heavily skewed toward story, and that's perfectly fine for me, this is why i like Tjord games, take Dark Lord Rises or Record of Asturion War for example. Its a story with sex, not sex with story.

Btw I would love to see sort of "post scriptum" from the dev himself, why he wrote certain characters like he did, what did he liked about writing the story and what he didn't like, did he expect opinions being so polarized etc...

 

[wiseold6996]

Really dissapointed with samira's transformation. Her sassiness was kinda her best part. She really lost all her personality and the purple hair does not really suit her. But I love the glowing eyes on them.
Damn and no harem ending? Adam should have been promoted and be allowed to operate his own team. Such a shame about yuria and audrey.

 

[nogoodname11]

I'll throw in my two cents and say that I really enjoyed the new corruption direction and more stoic/serious protagonist. I don't play these games for the sex scenes and don't actually like them in general. So I know I'm a weirdo, but this was a fresh breath of air for me. I will say though that I wish the women had more of their original personalities instead of all being kind of robotic. My favorite aspect of corruption stories is using corrupted people to pretend to be their old selves to betray their former allies. The one scene with Victoria and the Audrey subplot were the highlights of the alt route for me. So at least for me, the "perfect" version of this story would be the Alt Route's protagonist with the base story's plot. That being said, I just want to thank Tjord for trying something new and continuing to provide these games for free. Looking forward to whatever you do next.

 

[Tjord]

With fetishes, density of normal/H-content and (corruption) aesthetics, there's no pleasing everyone. I am therefore not surprised new route didn't hit right with everyone. Back when I was making The Dark Lord Rises - my very first game - a surprise gender-bender scene has almost cost me most of my few players. Back then, I've took it too much to heart and the quality of the game (as well as the sequel) suffered for it. Fortunately, I've come to accept this fact and move on. Story takes priority to me, and I am not above introducing some elements others would find not to their taste if it is to plot's benefit.

Now, will "emotionless terminators" now become staple of my stories? No. See, my work process is actually quite strange. 2.0 was not written over the course of four months (I started working on it mid-december). Vast majority of the script was actually written during two weeks around Christmas (basically everything from the start to Audrey's h-scene). It was a flash of inspiration, followed by intense work, until that inspiration wore off as the flaws in the original idea (which at the beginning was basically: make Victorica first one to fall + make her conquer her own planet - inquisitor was justa "means" to get her to that state) became apparent. New MC's "sexlessnes" was obvious to me from the start, hence attempts to introduce justifications for H-content in the plot, which unfortunately turned to be too flimsy. Around time I hit the Cassandra's corruption, those flaws became too much, and my enthusiasm for "drones" cooled off. At that point, I almost dropped the script into the bin - as I actually do with many of my writings (did I ever mention I have 10-15 abandoned projects in Renpy alone? )

Alas, I made a mistake of teasing the update on this forum, so after meandering, playing with AI/Twine/other ideas for two months, I finally buckled up, hit my stride a few weeks ago and managed to finish the game using new corruption as a clutch. Making the last corruption scene was a blast and something I want to do more often in the future, provided I stay on Honey Select 2.

Is 2.0 storyline better than original one? No, I will be first to agree that agree it is not. But it fullfills all the goals I placed before it: it gives previously neglected characters more chance to shine; it offers vastly different experience; finally, it expands the world of "The Fall" series with elements I might return to in the future. So, I'll still label it as a success.

Now, there's one thing I need to apologize for: those shameful typos that I failed to exterminate in the rush. Since Isis, I've learned to put my script at least two times through Google's grammar/spelling checker, but it's apparently not enough. I'll try to work on it more in the future.

 

[MakeMeTea]

I can't play Valdana 2.0 as much as I want and I started from the very beginning to fresh up my memories, so I'm still just getting to the first battle of the upgraded Victorica. But I see the discussion (trying to avoid spoilers ) and I have a few things to say.

1. I like the change in balance between plot and sex. Honestly, I always felt like the sex scenes took up too much time. I wanted the characters in their new identities to have time to develop properly in the story. And 2.0 giving this to me by now. And judging by the comments, the balance will stay that way for the rest of the route.

2. The second thing I liked is essentially related to the previous one. I find it interesting to follow the battles as well as the intrigue going on outside of the battles. I had expressed even before the update came out that I would like to add mecha battles. But space fleet battles are interesting too.
I like test011 statement: «If you want pure nukige then play nukige, play any of the other game on this side that focuses on pure sex or just watch a porn video.» It's a valid point that an adult game doesn't have to be stuffed full of erotic scenes. However, an erotic scene may well serve as a reward for the player or a release after a tense moment.

By the way, I didn't see much murders you say at the part of the game where I stayed. But isn't it a thing, that evil corrupted people do?)) Actually, when I read corruption story, I always wait for corrupted characters to do evil things, like killing people, not just fucking like rabbits

So, I can understand the frustration of people expecting a cooming marathon. But I'm quite satisfied with the way things are.

P.S.
I have trouble with understanding the comments about drones and... «dronification»? Probably because I'm not a native English speaker. Aren't drones just little helicopters with radio controls?)) To me Adama is a follower of ideas about transhumanism through cyborgization.

P.P.S.
This new route somehow reminded me about Asturion War that I've always liked for the battle aspect.

 

[kzk0987]

I mostly took your post as basis because it was the most recent. Don't feel like the burden of response is entirely on you, or that you need to respond. I have no intention of insulting you or making you feel bad. If I did do those things unintentionally, I apologise.
I'm happy to hear your rebuttals if you have any. I was only engaging with your arguments, which to me were exceptionally shaky.

Fine. It did sound aggressive and insulting like you were lashing out at me for no reason, and honestly to an extent it still sounds more like you want to fight than to discuss. But I'll not be an ass and take you at your word that it was unintentional.
I will reply your answers honestly.
Sorry I didn't before and sorry for trying to just shut discussion down.

Why is that unfair? Is there some kind of law against comparing routes in the same game?
And even if it is shorter, you're allowed to critisize the allocation of resources of the shorter path. I'd honestly like to see a comparison of text to the original route and then see how much of the 'shorter' route is superfluous space-battle statistics that frankly don't matter.

I meant more in the sense that comparing amount of content was unfair, just considering the allocation of resources is fine, but I don't see how that is comparing the two...?
I didn't mean that people can't compare what kind of content they like more, now I see that my post can be read that way. If you got that, it was not my intention.

My D&D character totally has a deep backstory, he's the prince of a nation and has parents that he lost and he's trying to buy an orphanage for... Oh when does that show up in the game? Oh it doesn't really, he takes pills to supress anything interesting happening to him.
do we see him taking these pills or struggling with this repression then?
No not really, this all happens off screen and we don't really see any of that.
So he just...doesn't engage with his background?
Nope, but he REALLY wants to and sort of does when forced to by the story.
Cool, cool, so basically you have no backstory?

If it doesn't show up in the game or the story you have no backstory. If the character doesn't want to engage in sex and is shown actively avoiding it unless it's imperative to the success of the mission but never realyl examining it beyond mild curiosity, there is no or barely any sexuality. Dumbledore isn't gay unless it's in the text or can be deduced from the text, no matter what J.K. Rowling says in tweets.

I don't get what you mean here. I got what I said about Adama... From the game. He says several times that he's feeling things (not only horny, but also angry or annoyed) and that his neural network suppresses it. You can find that boring (I started to find it repetitive eventually) but it's not like I'm taking it from an out of game source (especially because those don't really exist...?)

Why is that important? Are we meeting some sort of quota here? It's good that the protagonist in my erotic story isn't interested in sex! That's a positive thing? I bet Agatha Christie sort of went "my last murder-mystery has a detective that WANTED to solve the case and was interested in uncovering it all, but how about we now do a detective that isn't really interested in mysteries or puzzles, I bet my audience will love that!". It's fun as a novelty, but I wouldn't say it's good or even necesarry. Maybe next route we can put in Mr. Bean or Paddington as protagonists, we haven't had those yet! What wonders will occur when they're forced to engage in sexual hijinks!
Variety for the sake of variety isn't inherently good, necesarry or important. Also: why the fuck was there even a need for a different protagonist? Why was that important?

Dude. Stuff like this is why I said to calm down. It just sounds like angry rambling even if it wasn't your intention. But reading it again more calmly I think I got what annoyed you about the game.
I think someone else said that already, but some find mind control in itself sexy. The girls getting their bodies and minds transformed is inherently erotic. The sex scenes are the cherry on top, not the meat of it. It was so to me in the previous route too, if I were to go to my screenshot folder, most of it is the slave oaths and the girls acting unlike their former selves and stuff like that. I'm a mind-control fetishist.

I agree the sex scenes were weaker (with exceptions like any involving Cassandra, because she was proactive, and the ones with Yuria which were the best thing in the route for me), but to me, and I'd imagine to other people who approach mind control the same way, sex scenes are not the whole game. For you, it they're all that matter (at least the way you talk about anything story-related gives that impression, sorry if I'm mistaken).

You're also sort of glossing over that this is the explicit direction the author chose to take this story, it's easy to justify the transformations NEEDING to be this way because of the direction of the story, but the direction of the story could have necesitated something else entirely.

I think this is the one thing he didn't have much choice on, actually. Because from the start Tjord set out to do a shorter route (it started as just a bit of bonus content), so from the start the structure called for something more compact.
And regardless, it's the story the dev wanted to tell. Here we again fall into what I said on the other post. The route could be somewhere else entirely, but my review was choosing to engage with the route we have.

I hope this clears out any misunderstandings between us, and feel free to ask further if something still isn't clear.

 

[Addictions]

A lot of things that don't really respond to my specific question to kzk0987

I meant mostly a response to these statements by kzk0987:
Why is it unfair to compare paths?
Why do they think the protagonist is sexual, despite him clearly rejecting it?
Why is diversity (and lack of sexual interest) in the protagonist important in this particular instance?

Those were the weird statements they were making and weren't really explaining. Though they've already expanded upon it in a later post, I see.

I'm aware that there's differences in personal tastes, I'm fine with people enjoying other things.
What IS weird is the complete change in direction in the game, whereas you're claiming something like "oh, this is primarily a story, not about sex and such" it WAS befor that. Most of the people I showed the game too when I was enthused described it as something akin to "delicious, gratuitous junk food" with no real story value aside from the sex and corruption. I disagreed with it, but it's not high art.

Bringing up another author that's like this also doesn't really change the fact that both ISIS and Valdana had a particular approach to things, whereas this is completely different. You always risk alienating the audience you've already built up if ou suddenly do the complete opposite. I'm happy you like this, but this isn't what the game was before and it's a shame because I liked it before.

Also I also thought Tabico stories were incredibly boring generally, from what I recall. i used to read Mcstories voraciously and not a single one of theirs stuck with me. I'm happy you like them though. I'm very aware that tastes differ.
You consistently repeating "some people like that" however, doesn't mean that other people also can't dislike that. Tjord can do what they want, but I'd argue that the new arc is so vastly different and focused on the opposite that it's fine if people don't like it either.
Same way you keep repeating 'yeah but I (let's be honest, you're saying some people but you mean 'I') like it' doesn't mean people can't say 'I don't like it for these and these reasons and I feel frustrated that a game I enjoyed added something completely opposite of what I enjoyed'.

EDT:
From what I'm reading here the proponents of the new path mostly:

• Do not like sex or erotica, or find things erotic that do not involve sexuality.
• Would generally prefer to read a sci-fi novel about space battles and statistics. (so why not do that? I doubt you've read all of Heinlein or Zelasny at this point)
• Do not really care about characterisation and have the characters be as flat as possible
• Really want the character to be evil and murder people instead of it being a backdrop used to make the corruption sweeter. (also frankly, murder isn't mature, I'll assume most of you are American where it's more likely to see somebody eviscerated on screen than to see actual mature content.)

I'm happy you're all happy but these opinions are so incredibly weird to me I'm just going to dip out.

Also MakeMeTea, I'm also ESL (or third in my case) and the fact that you're aware of the term transhumanism and not what a drone is is a strange gap. (but that's ok! people don't know everything.)
Maybe it would be better framed as robotization, but that doesn't roll of the tongue as well. You've probably watched Star Trek, I assume? The Borg turn people into drones. Tech servitors from 40k are droneified. Ants are drones to their queen, for a more natural example.
It's mostly stripping away humanity from someone to make them behave in a drone or robot-like fashion and making the subservient to either a common cause or a specific leader by means of tech. It's characterized by a personality erasure, robotic movements, bodyparts replaced by machines, lack of will and autonomous functionality.
Does that help somewhat?

 

[Chimp :D]

Tjord I honestly enjoyed the tfs more this time around, I dont mind the expedited transformations, felt like the last 2 didn't match that well but eh, enjoyed it feel like the games could do with smaller cast + more events over big cast (found myself itching for more content for some of the girls). I did however find the story more appealing this time (even though I already liked the first one, this one was a step up for sure).

 

[kzk0987]

I meant mostly a response to these statements by kzk0987:
Why is it unfair to compare paths?
Why do they think the protagonist is sexual, despite him clearly rejecting it?
Why is diversity (and lack of sexual interest) in the protagonist important in this particular instance?

Those were the weird statements they were making and weren't really explaining.

I'm aware that there's differences in personal tastes, I'm fine with people enjoying other things.
What IS weird is the complete change in direction in the game, whereas you're claiming something like "oh, this is primarily a story, not about sex and such" it WAS befor that. Most of the people I showed the game too when I was enthused described it as something akin to "delicious, gratuitous junk food" with no real story value aside from the sex and corruption. I disagreed with it, but it's not high art.

Bringing up another author that's like this also doesn't really change the fact that both ISIS and Valdana had a particular approach to things, whereas this is completely different. You always risk alienating the audience you've already built up if ou suddenly do the complete opposite. I'm happy you like this, but this isn't what the game was before and it's a shame because I liked it before.

Also I also thought Tabico stories were incredibly boring generally, from what I recall. i used to read Mcstories voraciously and not a single one of theirs stuck with me. I'm happy you like them though. I'm very aware that tastes differ.
You consistently repeating "some people like that" however, doesn't mean that other people also can't dislike that. Tjord can do what they want, but I'd argue that the new arc is so vastly different and focused on the opposite that it's fine if people don't like it either.
Same way you keep repeating 'yeah but I (let's be honest, you're saying some people but you mean 'I') like it' doesn't mean people can't say 'I don't like it for these and these reasons and I feel frustrated that a game I enjoyed added something completely opposite of what I enjoyed'.

I meant "I and at least one other person who voiced this opinion on the thread", but fair.
Also I don't want to take the mantle of the biggest defender of the new route or anything because I prefer the original also. There seems to be some people who actually prefer the new one. So I leave this solemn duty to them.

I answered your questions about comparing paths and what I think about the protagonist's sexual inclinations in my previous post.

As for the diversity of protagonists' personality, it's simple - there's no point in having a different protagonist in the same game if he behaves the same way as the other one. If it's between two different games it's fine to have similar guys. But in the same game generally people aim to make the two protagonists as different as possible. I thought it was understandable, plain and simple. Not a necessity, but a common path to take.
Now, doesn't mean the protagonist had to be an emotionless cyborg... That's just what Tjord chose to go with.

 

[Addictions]

I meant "I and at least one other person who voiced this opinion on the thread", but fair.
Also I don't want to take the mantle of the biggest defender of the new route or anything because I prefer the original also. There seems to be some people who actually prefer the new one. So I leave this solemn duty to them.

I answered your questions about comparing paths and what I think about the protagonist's sexual inclinations in my previous post.

As for the diversity of protagonists' personality, it's simple - there's no point in having a different protagonist in the same game if he behaves the same way as the other one. If it's between two different games it's fine to have similar guys. But in the same game generally people aim to make the two protagonists as different as possible. I thought it was understandable, plain and simple. Not a necessity, but a common path to take.
Now, doesn't mean the protagonist had to be an emotionless cyborg... That's just what Tjord chose to go with.

Yeah I was replying to test011's reply first and saw you had responded, which I appreciate. I wanted to delve into it but my off-the-cuff typing is apparently rubbing people the wrong way. I'll try and come back to it at a later date, if that's ok?

Again, didn't mean any ill will towards you and I appreciate you responding. I just have less of a filter when I'm tired and I tend to want to 'spice things up' during my posts since I'm not writing essays and I'm trying to practice being more spontaneous in writing instead of the aforementioned essays.

 

[kzk0987]

Yeah I was replying to test011's reply first and saw you had responded, which I appreciate. I wanted to delve into it but my off-the-cuff typing is apparently rubbing people the wrong way. I'll try and come back to it at a later date, if that's ok?

Again, didn't mean any ill will towards you and I appreciate you responding. I just have less of a filter when I'm tired and I tend to want to 'spice things up' during my posts since I'm not writing essays and I'm trying to practice being more spontaneous in writing instead of the aforementioned essays.

No problem. Talking on the internet is hard, sometimes things don't come out the way they sound in our heads. Happens all the time to me too.
Sorry for taking it the wrong way earlier.

it gives previously neglected characters more chance to shine; it offers vastly different experience; finally, it expands the world of "The Fall" series with elements I might return to in the future. So, I'll still label it as a success.

I also think that's the highlight of the new route. Seeing more of Audrey, seeing different sides of Yoona and Yuria, all that not only contributes to this route (making their downfall here satisfying) but also is on the back of my mind now that I'm replaying the original. It helps enhance the experience. And getting more worldbuilding is always nice, I liked getting more glimpses into how Nova Terra works.

And yeah, I really liked what you did with the last corruption scene. Though I'm more into submissive women, I could see that working in a game about succubus corruption or something along those lines. The final scene was also great and delivered on that submission I wanted so best of both worlds for me. I just wish

Spoiler: Last scene

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Even if this expansion was a bit hit or miss, as far as the full releases go you only get better with every new game you release (Valdana is the best you ever did in my opinion, already had that opinion before the new route and the new stuff only adds to it. The stuff I don't like about it does not outshine the new stuff I do like) and I'm really looking forward to what you cook next.