VN Ren'Py Zero End [v0.2.4d] [Stolen Rose]

4.80 star(s) 71 Votes
Discussion Reviews (71)
Hungover00

Hungover00

Engaged Member
Apr 29, 2023
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BurgRoyce said:
Most seriously underrated game on this suite, IMO.
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I was going to challenge you, but it's a 2+ year old game, with 70 reviews, but only 66 pages/1304 posts. That's criminally low for how quality the game is. Maybe the dev needs to hide some references to other games, get some cross promotion going on (it's a tradition that reaches at least back to Lovecraft). Or some other marketing strategy, it's not my field. But it does deserve more attention. There's only a handful of games on this site that can reasonably considered art, and this game feels like a shoe in. (even if it would have been nice to be a harem /s)
 
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Stolen_rose

Stolen_rose

Member
Game Developer
Aug 3, 2022
190
1,481
Allenebs said:
No, it's been the repeated extended breaks where you've gone MIA for a month or so 3 separate times since August. You do realize that most employers require people maintain a 95%+ attendance or be terminated, right? (Yes, you had another job at the time, but this project is you doing this for you. And you're now going full time for a while...) This has become a very big issue bc I'm concerned that even pointing out that this behavior is an issue could send you right back down that rabbit hole. You're blaming burnout, I'm blaming unmitigated depression. Those things kinda go hand in hand. I can only imagine this is only going to be conflated by functionally locking yourself away to work on the game while also learning URE for the next few months.

I also think that AVN devs as a whole have become highly problematic. They've all gone from targeting 800-1200 renders per update to 1600-2000. In reality, it's been more 1000-1200 to 1600-1750, meaning on average like a 35-40% increase in work load per update while the time per update has easily doubled - even tripled.

You have more flexibility in this gig than pretty much anyone else. You can do things like get a cheap $20 used Chromebook or take an old phone and do a factory reset. Then, install a voice to text app. Use your AirPods, or w/e headset you have, and you are free to do everything on the game short of the actual renders while doing anything and everything else. One of the worst things you can do for your mental health is one of the most common behaviors among creatives - they functionally build themselves a sensory depravation cave to allow themselves to lock into a moment. It's 2025. It's infinitely healthier to get out and go to the places or do the things that are inspiring you. Even if that means going out and walking around an abandoned, mid 1800s home you saw out in the wilderness. Or walking around old Civil War era cemeteries. You could be working out in the gym, driving for 8hrs straight, hiking and camping 50 miles into the wilderness. Hell, you could do this gig while actively working your primary job in a lot of cases.

I don't know what the problem is, but when devs go full time they tend to go from complaining about only having 2-4hrs a day to work on the game to working on the game for at most 1-2hrs a day. That math doesn't math. If you have to work 8-12hrs a day at your normal job to make ends meet, why the fuck do these people think its reasonable to put in at most half of the work when they start doing this full time? When you talk to most Youtubers, they're putting in 60+hrs a week easily and most love it. With the exception of digi and Artemis, no ones doing merch. Why are solo BG3 modders cranking out entire story expansions in highly complex game engines at a significantly faster rate than AVN devs are in a very simplistic engine? There is so much self-destructive behavior in this space that it's maddening.
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I feel like half of this isn't even about me.
I don't mind being held accountable--by all means, I should be, but I don't know what I can offer beyond what I already have. I've addressed the issue, I've presented my plans to improve the situation, and I'm currently working on it. I guess I'll just say what I say every time people say I'll abandon it: the only way to prove what I'm saying is to finish the game, so that's what I'll focus on.

Jakeace said:
"Nearly HALF-WAY" ?? so another 8 months i gess!! before release next update. The game is great i just hope more people suport.
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Definitely not 8 more months
 
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RandomGuy99

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Nov 11, 2018
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Stolen_rose said:
I feel like half of this isn't even about me.
I don't mind being held accountable--by all means, I should be, but I don't know what I can offer beyond what I already have. I've addressed the issue, I've presented my plans to improve the situation, and I'm currently working on it. I guess I'll just say what I say every time people say I'll abandon it: the only way to prove what I'm saying is to finish the game, so that's what I'll focus on.



Definitely not 8 more months
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While i dislike the waiting time, the quality of the game is great. Just wish you had team to speed things up. Keep it up. This game is one of the best here
 
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c.mork

c.mork

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Nov 3, 2022
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Hello!
I'm back with an update, but I'm not sure how coherent it'll be since I've been writing all day today. I don't have a lot to update, but there's been progress made, so let's go through it. I've wanted to focus on writing and I did, so now I'm quite a bit ahead with the writing, meaning I can go back to a balanced approach. Which I would, but I got very caught up in the last scenes I've worked on, so I think I'll keep the writing focus for a few more days.
Now, that's not to say I haven't done any work on images, I have, just not as much as I'd normally do. Still, I did manage to get some really cool shots and tried to do more visual storytelling. I really like what came out and I'll share some.
Going forward, I wanna, like I mentioned, focus on writing for 3-4 more days and then go back to doing both writing and renders. I wanna ride the wave for now.
Oh, and I also made a gameplay system. Nothing major, just a random scene selector to make things more interesting for multiple playthroughs.
That being said, I'm breaking to get something to eat right now, so I'll see you later!
Hope you're having an amazing day!
--SR

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E2D5memory_8_marie49.png

One of the shots I was talking about. I think I've been under-using wide shots--they can work so well sometimes.
 
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RandomGuy99

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Nov 11, 2018
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c.mork said:
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Hello!
I'm back with an update, but I'm not sure how coherent it'll be since I've been writing all day today. I don't have a lot to update, but there's been progress made, so let's go through it. I've wanted to focus on writing and I did, so now I'm quite a bit ahead with the writing, meaning I can go back to a balanced approach. Which I would, but I got very caught up in the last scenes I've worked on, so I think I'll keep the writing focus for a few more days.
Now, that's not to say I haven't done any work on images, I have, just not as much as I'd normally do. Still, I did manage to get some really cool shots and tried to do more visual storytelling. I really like what came out and I'll share some.
Going forward, I wanna, like I mentioned, focus on writing for 3-4 more days and then go back to doing both writing and renders. I wanna ride the wave for now.
Oh, and I also made a gameplay system. Nothing major, just a random scene selector to make things more interesting for multiple playthroughs.
That being said, I'm breaking to get something to eat right now, so I'll see you later!
Hope you're having an amazing day!
--SR

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View attachment 4564222

One of the shots I was talking about. I think I've been under-using wide shots--they can work so well sometimes.
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Why do i have a feeling that some ghost/demon gonna pop out that place.
 
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Beefle

Member
Nov 22, 2023
133
174
Can't believe I've been sleeping on this game for so long. Just finished it in one playthrough. Probably the most underrated VN on this site. Dev did a great job with the writing of the characters. Especially the MC. It can be hard to flesh out a character like Caleb without him coming across as a pathetic whiny little bitch, but the dev did great with it. Can't wait to see where it goes.
 
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Canto Forte

Canto Forte

Post Pro
Jul 10, 2017
22,011
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Yup .. the secret sauce this game oozes is the carefully woven plot and story connecting all jumpscares and the somewhat counter intuitive ways MC gets into and outta some of the tight spots this game puts him through:
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Very titilating stuff to go through every once in a while in a full moon - that are getting increasingly common recently.
 
c.mork

c.mork

Active Member
Nov 3, 2022
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Hello!
I'm back with some news. It's now been three weeks of going full time on the project (while still learning and applying to jobs on the side) and I feel it's going really well. I'm feeling a lot better myself, for one. That's definitely a thing I'm happy about. It's been going really well on the project too, though, so let's get to it.
I figured I'd give some numbers periodically, so here we go:
For the writing, we're currently at around 23k words for this release. It's a bit hard to calculate the exact number, but it should be close.
For static renders, we're at 1478.
Since I've focused a lot on getting as much writing as possible done, the increase in render count hasn't been dramatic, but we're still at around Day 3 values in terms of release size. I estimate that we're about 60-70% of the way done, but it's going much faster now than it used to. I've got some romance scenes to wrap up and a plot scene, then I can start on the final scenes. How long that will be, I'm not yet sure, but there's a lot of stuff coming to a head so it's probably not going to be short. Either way, I'm really happy to say that it's going better than it has in a long time and I'm really excited to finally show you what I've got cooking.
Hope you're having an amazing day!
--SR


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Find me in the shadow of the moon.
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mruggeri2

Member
Mar 10, 2018
155
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Is there a cheat mod for this game? I kinda want to get Chloe number but can't because I started with Toth and can't get to 13 Seduction before meeting her....
 
Maviarab

Maviarab

I will have the penne all'arrabiata
Donor
Jul 12, 2020
12,258
30,146
mruggeri2 said:
Is there a cheat mod for this game? I kinda want to get Chloe number but can't because I started with Toth and can't get to 13 Seduction before meeting her....
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To spoil you slightly it's largely irrelevant other than for a very early ending of the story which, while nice to see once and is well done, is obviously not what you really want long term.
 
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RandomGuy99

Well-Known Member
Nov 11, 2018
1,936
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c.mork said:
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Hello!
I have returned with news. It's not a whole lot of stuff, but there's some stuff I wanna talk about. It probably won't turn into a 500 word essay, but I've been writing today and I'm still in the flow, so who knows.
Since I already mentioned that, I got some writing done today. It wasn't really necessary until now as I was quite ahead, but I've finally caught up and I'm about 3 scenes behind with the visuals, so I started writing again and finished a scene that I had hanging for a while. Also started a new one.
The more interesting part is the visuals: I got a lot of renders done since last I gave an update and we're about halfway done (as well I can tell without having the text finished). I actually have some really cool shots I wanna share with you.
On a more personal note, I'm still working at my job, but next week is my last at the company. I can't explain how excited I am. It's gonna be scary, not gonna lie, it's quite a risky step, but it's pretty thrilling too.
Now, before I go, I wanna share some stats with you. I've been hesitant to share details about where the release is at, exactly, because I was ashamed with myself. But I think it's best I be specific as I feel it may do more harm than good being evasive about it. So, here it is:
- Word Count ~14k (this one's harder to estimate)
- Static renders: 1174
- Animations: 5 animations of about 26 seconds total
Overall, we're about halfway done. I hope that helps in clarifying where we're currently at with the release.
Hope you're having an amazing day!
--SR

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View attachment 4511397
"Am I too damaged for you?"
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We can fix her collectively
 
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4.80 star(s) 71 Votes